By Michael A. Burney Executive Director, Calhoun County EMA
09-20-2001
Richard Raeke's recent article entitled "Depot crew watches over stockpile, leakers" chronicles the important work undertaken on a daily basis by the surveillance crewmembers at the Anniston Army Depot. The Level A suits these brave workers wear every day are all that stand between them and the three deadly chemical and nerve agents stored at the AAD.
What Raeke's article failed to mention, however, is that for many years the Calhoun County EMA has sought Level A suits for our police, firemen and other first responders throughout the county. So far, we have only been authorized "escape suits" for responders not to be used in a contaminated environment. We have requested funding and authorization for Level A suits from the Army and FEMA. To date, all of our requests have been denied. That means in the event of a chemical or nerve agent accident, either during storage or after destruction begins, our county will not be able to get the proper level of personnel out into the area where the toxic plume has gone to rescue people or to determine if an area is clear nor fully participate in recovery and reentry.
Sound far-fetched? Hardly. Raeke's story mentions "on some days a strong north wind can shut down operations as computer modeling shows it could carry a plume of nerve agent outside the depot's perimeter."
The bottom line is this: The depot and its workers are well prepared for an accident or leak at AAD. Good for them. Our community has proven its readiness in the face of natural disasters. However, we are woefully unprepared to deal with a chemical agent disaster due to the slowness and lack of proactive initiative by FEMA and the Army regarding resource and planning requirements. That was the conclusion of the U.S. General Accounting Office in its recently released report about the CSEPP program. Calhoun County first responders need Level A suits from the federal government and we need them now so that we can begin to establish training for these frontline responders through the Center for Domestic Preparedness.
The Calhoun County EMA takes its hat off to the great work being done by the depot's surveillance workers. It's a shame the Army and FEMA do not think our local first responders should be afforded the same level of protection as has been given to those on post.
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