On Wednesday, a group of people from Washington, including some top officials from the Pentagon, will arrive in Anniston to hold another round of meetings on emergency preparedness dealing with the stockpile at the Anniston Army Depot.
In the recent past, these meetings were not attended by some of our local officials. And that is a pity because a great deal of progress could have been made by all sides. This time, however, it should be different. Members of the Calhoun County Commission and the local emergency management agency have indicated they will be in attendance.
Now the challenge will be to move forward on emergency preparedness. The commissioners have long wanted a number of items they deem essential for readying our population for an unlikely accident at the Depot. Those items include protective masks, protective suits for emergency workers as well as a variety of other equipment and more personnel to staff local EMA offices.
Pentagon and federal EMA officials should find a way to come through with these items and the money to pay for them despite the enormous strains on the Defense Department at the moment.
Whatever your opinion of the federal gevernment's effort on this issue, it is already more than clear that the Defense Department at least wants to solve this problem. Consider for a moment what is going on in Washington. It is a safe bet that our issue is not foremost on defense policy makers' minds. Yet here we have a full contingent of Pentagon officials coming to town anyway.
The County Commission and the local EMA in return should pledge their fullest cooperation in this effort and immediately join a regional public education campaign that will teach the public what to do in case of an accident.
And everyone should agree that it is high time to put this issue on the fast track. The best way to rid ourselves of this highly dangerous problem is to incinerate it as quickly and as safely as possible.
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