It’s time for local officials to make a decision about protective respiratory hoods, or gas masks, for the community. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has told the Calhoun County Commission and the Anniston City Council that they must choose the gas mask that is right for the some 30,000 residents living near the Anniston Army Depot’s chemical weapons stockpile.The Calhoun County Commission has pushed for the hoods all along and they should bear the responsibility for selecting them and developing a program to distribute the hoods and educate the public on their proper use.
FEMA should not, however, put that same responsibility and liability on the back of the Anniston City Council, which has taken no official stand on the hoods.
Under political fire, FEMA reversed a previous decision not to fund the hoods as it cited potential safety problems arising from their use. With that in mind, FEMA officials have said that the manufacturer of any selected hood must carry liability insurance in case a resident suffocates or is injured.
Now that the Calhoun County Commission and EMA have received the sought-after hoods, there should be no delays in distributing them and educating the public.
County officials knew last summer that they wanted hoods and Undersecretary of Defense Edward “Pete” Aldridge said he would provide the funding in October. That means the Calhoun County EMA has had more than six months to formulate a cohesive plan.
Such a plan will have to include who will receive the hoods, who will train the public on the use of the hoods and how they will do it, and how will the hoods by maintained and inspected.
In the last six months, the Calhoun County EMA should have been working on these questions. Now let’s see the answers.
There should be no more delays in preparing this community for a chemical weapons accident at the Anniston Army Depot. County officials now have everything that they have asked for and can no longer provide excuses for the lack of a real emergency preparedness plan.
That means no squabbling over the guidelines for issuing the hoods, no more trashing of the shelter-in-place and no more stalling on a public education campaign. Calhoun County should not have to wait any longer. We’ve had our flanks exposed for far too long.
