Emergency response to chemical and biological agents

342 Pages·2000·4.17 MB·English

by  John R Cashman

E
MERGENCY
R
ESPONSE TO
C
HEMICAL AND
B A
IOLOGICAL GENTS
John R. Cashman
©2000 CRC Press LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Emergency response to chemical and biological agents / John R. Cashman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 1-56670-355-7 (alk. paper)
1. Hazardous substances—Accidents—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.
T55.3.H3 C377 1999
628.9¢2 21—dc21 99-043796
CIP
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© 2000 by John R. Cashman
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Introduction
Emergency responders are trained primarily to respond to fires or hazardous mate-
rials accidents. However, with the increase of terrorism in the United States, it is
increasingly important that emergency response teams are trained to handle incidents
involving biological, chemical, and nuclear agents. Utilizing recent case studies and
interviews, this book presents a framework for emergency response to terrorist and
criminal acts. It provides the emergency responder with data on the safe handling
and disposal of biological and chemical agents, information on hazardous materials
teams’ operations, and numerous resources.
A NEW BALLGAME FOR HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
TEAMS
Chief John Eversole is the hazardous materials coordinator for the Chicago, IL Fire
Department. He has been a member of the department for 30 years and worked on
some of the busiest engines, trucks, hook-and-ladders, and squad companies in the
western part of the city. Eversole is a member of the National Fire Protection
Association standard committee that produced national hazardous materials NFPA-
471, NFPA-472, and NFPA-473. He is chairman of the International Association of
Fire Chiefs’ hazardous materials committee.
A leader on the street, and in the committee rooms where the nitty-gritty of
hazardous materials response in the United States is thrashed out, Chief John Ever-
sole is approachable to all persons and eloquent in expressing his thoughts. His
command presence on an incident scene comes from extensive experience leading
Haz Mat teams at major incidents.
We asked Chief Eversole for his opinions about response to chemical, biological,
and nuclear materials as they relate to domestic terrorism in the United States. “I
believe we have to look at the problem from several levels. The biggest problem
we face in the fire service today is not all the ‘special’ problems such as terrorism.
The biggest problem we face today is keeping the Haz Mat program operational,
keeping our fire departments moving along and producing. It doesn’t matter how
many times we go out the door; people expect us to be right every time. Nobody
says, ‘Well, that’s okay; I know you messed up.’ That’s not acceptable to people.
We have a number of problems. Obviously, the financial crunch continues. The
constraints get tighter and tighter.
“The requirements that we have to fulfill with the federal government, national
standards, and everything else become more and more burdensome. Our fire service
emergency responders have to become more technically correct. They have to know
more, be able to do more. Still, we are expected to do this with fewer people and
fewer dollars. That is, the biggest challenge we face is just the ability to answer the
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call: every time the bell rings, we have to remain able to get out the door and still
be able to do the job properly.
“I believe one of our new challenges is the question of how we are going to
handle terrorism on a local basis. There is much question, much debate, and much
unknown about possible methods. There are many opinions from people who are
not well informed. What we need to do, and what the Hazardous Materials Com-
mittee of the International Association of Fire Chiefs is trying desperately to do, is
to get a really good handle on how we are going to handle terrorism as an emergency
responder. If we were to look at all terrorist incidents, it is obvious that the first
responder is the critical factor in establishing control over the incident and thereby
minimizing the disaster. If the first responders do not do a good job, the incident
could become uncontrollable. We have to make sure we act appropriately in a safe
manner and do not overreact.
“We can examine the recent anthrax hoax incident in Washington, D.C. Here is
the seat of the federal government. Here’s the place where every special ‘whatever-
they-are’ and every whiz in the nation practices. If you look at the news clips, you
could see everybody who was actually doing the work: the police were basically
trying to control the area, and the firefighters were handling the problem. ‘Was
everything that was done in Washington right or wrong?’ I don’t think that is the
question. What the incident shows us is that the local people are going to handle a
terrorist incident. In Washington, I didn’t see any soldiers, any Marines, or any
special government agencies there. I saw police and fire departments protecting their
communities, and I think we have to understand that’s the way it’s going to be.
“In this incident, a package marked ‘anthrax,’ it is my understanding that the
name was actually misspelled, was delivered to a building. Of course, everyone
became very concerned. Obviously, a terrorist act is intended to scare people. Well,
anthrax did a pretty good job of scaring people, and the Washington, D.C. fire
department was called as was the police department. What they did, had to be done.
They took what they thought were basic, logical steps. They controlled the area,
they backed away, they brought in people who had special protective clothing and
decontamination equipment, and they handled the incident. The fire service stood
proud in a fire department that is significantly stressed, yet they produced. If they
did not produce, who would have been there to effectively and in a reasonable time
frame protect their city? No one would be there. The point I am making again is
that we have to be able to get out and do our everyday business every day. We’ll
handle all these special problems that come along, such as terrorist acts, as they
come, but our operations have to be done in a reasonably intelligent manner.
“There are people going across the country making suggestions that are just
unreasonable. We have to look at the whole picture and say what we can reasonably
and intelligently do to respond to terrorist acts. Other than throwing millions of
dollars at a program as our federal government often does, the problem does not
have an answer. It’s how the money is spent, how it is intelligently used that matters.
We need to put money and effort into what will really solve problems. Oftentimes,
I question the ability to deliver an effective program; the bottom line is that protection
of communities has to be up to the local emergency responders. Even a small town
has to be adequately prepared to handle their known hazards just like a big city
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does. How they are going to do that is critical. It does not matter if it’s a big town
or a little town; we must provide reasonable protection in our communities. When
we cannot supply reasonable protection in our communities, there will be anarchy.
“The reality of the situation is that we cannot wait for somebody to come from
some long distance to get into our town, even if assistance can get there in a few
hours … which is unlikely in this type of operation. They will come in simply to
‘remediate,’ which is kind of a fancy term for ‘pick up the pieces.’ They are not
going to be the people who will make the life or death decisions that have to be
made. It will be the local people who will make these decisions; it should be the
responsibility of the federal and state governments to help them prepare to do that.
If the local people are sitting in their communities thinking the federal government
is going to totally bail them out of a terrorist Haz Mat situation, they are mistaken.
I don’t believe this is going to happen.
“In large metropolitan areas, we do have significant resources but we still need
help. We are going to need some basic help that the federal government has not yet
seen themselves ready to give. There are a lot of fancy words used, but the bottom
line is that if we are going to deal with a terrorism situation, or a reported terrorism
situation, we not only have to have trained people but we need to have basic
specialized equipment that will allow us to determine if this incident is a terrorist
incident or not.
“We’ve told firefighters for a long time that you can’t stand there and sniff it.
It takes some specialized equipment to determine the presence of a chemical warfare
agent release. These instruments have to be made available to the emergency local
responders. We again have to decide who is going to get them, what they are going
to get, how they are going to be trained to use such equipment, what is practical
and not practical. We’ve got to take these actions.
“The Hazardous Materials Committee within the International Association of
Fire Chiefs met yesterday to make sure that our committee is actively pursuing
decisions as to what should be done, how should we do it, who should do it, what
we need to deal with the situation, and what kind of equipment is needed. We are
going to have to make these recommendations like we’ve done many times in the
past. People are aware we have not always taken popular stands, but the fire chiefs’
committee studies varied issues and questions. There are a number of committee
members who are very knowledgeable, not only in the fire service but in specialty
areas. We have added a member to the committee who is perhaps one of the most
knowledgeable persons in the fire service with regard to terrorism. We will make
our recommendations to the board of directors of the International Association of
Fire Chiefs. They will then take these measures and act on them, and hopefully
agree with us. The Association will say this is what we think the management of
the fire service feels is what we should be doing, how we should protect our people
and our communities, and how we are going to react to terrorism.
“We are going to be worried and concerned about terrorist acts, but every day
I have to be prepared respond to an anhydrous ammonia leak, a chlorine leak, or
another type of spill. If we go back to the first part of our interview, we have still
got to put capable teams on the street every day. That’s going to be my number one
priority for the next six months while I am chairman of the I.A.F.C. Hazardous
©2000 CRC Press LLC
Materials Committee. Until the day I leave this job, when the bell rings, I will roll
up the big door and put hazardous materials response teams on the street who will
protect our communities. That’s the biggest thing we have to worry about. We will
deal with terrorism as we have dealt with communicable disease and everything else
we have had to deal with. We will deal with terrorism just as another part of what
we are already doing.
“Like everything else we do in the fire service, if we go to a house fire we need
to bring engine companies, hose, water, ladders, and all associated tools. If we are
going to a radiological incident, then we should know what the product is, how it
reacts, how we control it, and the method required to handle the problem. It’s just
that simple. Let’s not complicate this; don’t let people play the part of the bogeyman
and scare people. You cannot allow this to happen. This is an unbelievably great
country and an advanced technological world we live in. The fire service has to
maintain enough intelligence that they know they can do certain things. Like the
poker player in the old Kenny Rogers song, firefighters have to know when to stand
and when to fold. Well, we do that in fires. We say, ‘Time to back out of this building
that is not safe,’ and we get out. We have to know what we can do with terrorist
weapons of mass destruction, when to fold and when to hold. There is instrumen-
tation and methodology that’s readily available here so that we can establish mean-
ingful operating procedures.”
Contact: Chief John Eversole, Hazardous Materials Coordinator, City of Chicago Fire
Department, 558 West DeKoven Street, Chicago, IL 60607; 312-747-6582.
BACKGROUND
A hazardous materials response team (HMRT) is an organized group of employees
who are designated by the employer and who are expected to control actual or
potential situations in which close approach to leaking or spilled hazardous sub-
stances may be required A Haz Mat team may be a separate component of a fire
brigade or a fire department. While these teams are mainly concerned with handling
hazardous materials accidents, more and more they are faced with intentional crim-
inal and terrorists acts involving hazardous agents.
There is a lot of confusion about what terrorism is and what it is not. The Federal
Bureau of Investigation defines terrorism as, “the unlawful use of force or violence
against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian
population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
Domestic terrorism involves groups of individuals who are based and operate entirely
within the United States and Puerto Rico without foreign direction and whose acts
are directed at the elements of the U.S. Government or population. International
terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence committed by a group or individual
who has some connection to a foreign power or whose activities transcend national
boundaries, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the
civilian population, or any subject thereof, in furtherance of political or social
objectives.”
©2000 CRC Press LLC
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, terrorism is “the calculated use
of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to
intimidate governments of societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political,
religious, or ideological.”
Let’s deal with some recent incidents that were not terrorist acts. A trailer truck
carrying unirradiated nuclear fuel through downtown Springfield, MA was hit by a
drunken driver going the wrong way on Interstate 91. The truck crashed and burned
on an elevated section of highway in front of two major hotels at 3:18 a.m. The
local fire department could not receive valid information from federal agencies, the
General Electric Company who made and shipped the nuclear material, or the
Vermont Yankee nuclear power facility where the cargo was headed until after the
truck and sensitive cargo had been burned by flames estimated at 1200 degrees.
On April 2, 1997, Air Force Captain Craig D. Button flew his bomb-laden A-
10 Thunderbolt jet, an aircraft costing $9 million, away from two other A-10s during
a training mission at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, AZ and headed for
Colorado. Button’s disappearance sparked rumors of varied conspiracy theories
coming as it did shortly before the anniversary of both the Waco, TX Branch
Davidian killings and the killings at the Federal building in Oklahoma City, OK on
April 19, 1995.
On Thursday, April 24, 1997, it became apparent that the F.B.I. and the Pentagon
were looking for a tractor trailer carrying four training missiles, each valued at
$150,000, from a Boeing plant in Duluth, GA to Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis,
NM. The truck had been expected to arrive in New Mexico the previous Monday,
and carried a satellite-monitored tracking beacon supplied by Defense Tracking
System of Norfolk, VA. The truck vanished from computer screens on April 24,
1997. When a vehicle carrying munitions, weapons, or other sensitive equipment
has disappeared for four hours, trackers call state police for assistance.
The F.B.I. eventually put out a detention alert on Ronald D. Coy, 42, of Mid-
dletown, OH. Coy was believed to be driving a black 1991 Kenworth with mauve
and green pinstripes and the name, “Miss Honey Jean” on the bug shield. On April
26, 1997, Coy was found at the Flying J Truck Stop in Orange near the Louisiana
state line, while the missiles were found 300 miles away at a fenced-in lumber yard
at Ranger, TX. Reportedly, officials were expecting Coy to pull into that particular
truck stop. There was an undercover official there who saw Coy pull in, watched
the truck for about three minutes, and then gave a signal to about a dozen police
officers from a number of different agencies who rushed in and surrounded the truck
and arrested the driver. When taken into custody by the F.B.I., Coy was apparently
alone, unarmed, and put up no resistance. Although he could face charges of theft
of an interstate shipment and theft of government property, Coy’s intentions were
not immediately known. He was actually arrested on a charge of “wire fraud.”
Another truck with a satellite tracking system was lost in Texas on the same
day government agencies were searching for Coy. Carrying machine guns and
mortars to the U.S. Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton on the California coast,
the truck was no longer responding to satellite tracking. The trucking company
immediately canceled the driver’s fuel credit card. When refused credit at a truck
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stop near El Paso, TX, the driver called the trucking company. The truck’s tracing
beacon had failed, and the driver did not know he was being sought.
No terrorist activity was involved in any of these incidents, but rather just run-
of-the-mill, everyday problems in handling and security relative to transportation of
hazardous materials. It is going to get worse.
High-level radioactive waste from Canada and other foreign countries is on the
roads and rails of the United States and will undergo a massive increase in the near
future. The U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE) seeks to stem proliferation
around the world of the sort of highly enriched uranium that can be used to make
nuclear weapons.
U.S. DOE documents indicate more than 20 tons of such nuclear waste are to
be transferred from 42 foreign countries ranging from Bangladesh to Romania to
Brazil. Uranium containing more than 20% of the isotope uranium-235 is considered
to be highly enriched. The more highly enriched the uranium, the more easily it can
be used in weapons. Draft rules relative to this transportation of highly hazardous
materials forbid notifying the general public, and state: “Motor Carrier Safety
Coordinator shall forward notification of shipment to appropriate officials on a ‘need
to know’ basis only. Otherwise information will be confidential.”
Most of the foreign waste will come by ship to naval weapons stations in
Charleston, SC and Concord, CA and will be shipped from these ports to Savannah
River, SC and a similar facility in Idaho. About 15% of the total waste will come
from Canada and will be shipped by road and rail through the United States. Shipping
high-level radioactive waste around the United States has been called a “mobile
Chernobyl bill” by some people.
Regarding another type of radioactive waste, the U.S. Senate passed a bill on
April 16, 1997 that would allow shipments of nuclear waste from domestic com-
mercial reactors to a “temporary” storage site in Nevada. At the time of this writing,
such commercial sites have to store their radioactive waste “temporarily” on site at
each local facility. The commercial facilities dearly want to get rid of what they
now have to store since there is no permanent storage facility for high-level nuclear
waste. President Clinton promised to veto the senate bill saying the temporary site
in Nevada would relieve pressure to find a permanent waste site.
Hazardous materials response teams deal routinely with chemical and radioac-
tive or nuclear threats, and some teams have handled biological hazards. Terrorists,
however, tend to look at such materials as a land of opportunity for their respective
causes.
Nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) materials are more readily available
than ever before, and the total threat is growing day-by-day. Innocent people,
including women and children, are major targets of terrorists because in threatening
these, terrorists gain the most publicity for their cause. An infinite pool of potential
victims is created when terrorists do not recognize the innocence of certain groups.
Anyone, including you, can be a victim. The more common you are, the better it
plays with the media, and the more publicity created. Terrorists demand publicity,
and their particular targets are selected with an eye toward violence that will produce
the most notoriety.
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The world is changing to a point where horrendous violence has become possible
by any person. You no longer need an army, a state, or a country behind you. You
can do it alone. Rapid changes in technology have already stimulated broad scale
terrorism in other countries. The question is, “Will the United States become
engulfed by terrorists?”
In the past, most terrorist attacks were politically motivated. Now they can be
religious, cult, ethnic, nationalistic or right-wing such as Neo-Nazi or anti-Semitic;
or issue-specific movements like animals rights, anti-abortion, and environmental-
ism. Terrorist acts are cheap, can gain a lot of attention, and can be low-risk to the
perpetrator. In both time and resources, an expenditure total can be small. With NBC
materials, a weapon of mass destruction can be made, delivered, and set-off simply.
The explosion that rent the federal building in Oklahoma City was not dynamite, a
plastic explosive, nor any sophisticated weapon; it was fertilizer (ammonium nitrate)
mixed with fuel oil. Such a product is available to anyone. One of the most horren-
dous Haz Mat incidents that ever occurred in the United States was a pier explosion
of a cargo ship filled with ammonium nitrate that killed 561 Americans and injured
thousands in Texas City, TX on April 16, 1947.
The lead-time required to mount a terrorist attack can be very short, the risk is
currently minimal in the United States, and the potential for success is great.
“Loners,” like the one(s) who blasted the Oklahoma City federal building, are
extremely difficult to identify before an attack. Security procedures are all-important
to terrorists, so gaining information on them can be extremely difficult.
For foreign terrorists, the United States is thought of as the greatest power in
the world, and we are no longer immune to terrorist acts. All the world’s problems
are laid at the feet of the United States, while at the same time the United States
is blamed for not solving the world’s problems. Our country could become the
main target of international terrorism.
Anyone, legally or illegally, can enter the United States. It is a completely open
country, and terrorists would be able to work safely here. By some accounts,
immigration is out of control. In May, 1996, Border Patrol agents in the Swanton,
VT sector covering 261 miles of the quiet U.S./Canadian border apprehended 123
deportable aliens from Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba, Dominican
Republic, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Philippines, South Korea, Lebanon,
Sri Lanka, Togo, Spain, Romania, Somalia, Liberia, Jordan, Algeria, Sudan, Israel,
Egypt, France, Turkey, Armenia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Afghanistan.
Recently in the United States, terrorism has been blamed for attacks on the
World Trade center in New York City in 1993 where seven died and fourteen were
injured. In 1995, a U.S. court convicted 21 people for involvement in terrorist-related
activities, including Egyptian Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman and nine followers found
guilty of seditious conspiracy charges in plotting to bomb major New York City
landmarks and assassinate prominent politicians. Other incidents included the U.S.
Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., Mobil Oil headquarters in New York City, a
derailment of Amtrak’s Sunset Limited near Hyder, AZ on October 9, 1995, and the
ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 which killed 168 American citizens and injured
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hundreds more. In 1995, a member of the El Rukns street gang in Chicago was
charged with over 40 counts of conspiracy to conduct terrorist acts in the United
States on behalf of a foreign country (Libya). In May of 1995, an American citizen
obtained three vials of bubonic plague from a firm in Maryland, but it was unclear
why he ordered the bacteria.
In July of 1995, a member of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) pled guilty to
arson at the Mink Research Facility at Michigan State University. In December of
1995, an Internal Revenue Service employee found a 30-gallon plastic drum loaded
with 100 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil in a parking lot behind
the IRS building. Ramzi Ahmed Yowef went on trial May 13, 1996 for his alleged
involvement in the World Trade Center bombing. Musa Abu Marzook of the HAMAS
group was arrested at Kennedy International Airport while attempting to enter the
United States.
Bombing is the most popular way of carrying out terrorists activities in the
United States. Although not all were terrorist acts, during the period of 1990 to
1995, there were 12,512 total bombings and 5108 attempted bombings in the United
States which killed 355 persons and injured 3176.
Most of the poison agent victims of World War I are now gone, but we could
have a whole new generation of victims with us once again. It is important to realize
how the victims would die. All eight of the following chemical agents — two nerve,
two blood, two blister, and two choking agents — are all available to the U.S.
military, to 26 other governments according to the F.B.I., and increasingly to terrorist
organizations. The C.I.A. states there are at least ten countries that are believed to
be conducting research on biological weapons.
A blister gas known as lewisite smells like geraniums to the victim. The median
lethal dosage expressed as mg-min/m3 is 1200 to 1500 by inhalation, or 100,000 by
skin exposure. The action of lewisite is very rapid, and the best known decontam-
ination method used by emergency responders to an incident would be to scrub
victims down with calcium hypochlorite.
The blood agent hydrogen cyanide, known as AC to the military and HCN to
commercial users, can be a colorless gas or liquid and smells like bitter almonds.
Hydrogen cyanide is the only chemical in the United States which is required to be
carried in a “candystriper,” a specially colored railroad tank car that might hopefully
warn away emergency responders who might be called to a railroad wreck. It has
a median lethal dosage of 100 for resting persons, and its action as a chemical agent
is extremely rapid. Decontamination would be by application and scrubbing with
sodium hydroxide.
The nerve agent known as sarin, used by the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo to
kill 12 people and injure 5500 in the Tokyo subway, has a rapid effect on victims
and a median lethal dosage that varies widely. Another nerve agent that has a
classified chemical formula and is known as VX has a median lethal dose of 100
and is also considered to have a rapid effect on victims. For the first, sodium
hydroxide can be used for decon, while for the second, calcium hypochlorite could
be used.
Phosgene, a choking agent that is common in commercial usage and has a
median lethal dosage of 3200, can smell like newly mown hay or green corn, and
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