Anthrax detection system to be installed at postal center

Regional facility
second in state to get biohazard alarms

BY GLORIASTRAVELLI
Staff Writer

Regional facility
second in state to get biohazard alarms
BY GLORIASTRAVELLI
Staff Writer


The Biohazard Detection System installed on mail canceling machines will set off an alarm if anthrax is detected.The Biohazard Detection System installed on mail canceling machines will set off an alarm if anthrax is detected.

Mail processing equipment at the Eatontown Regional Mail Processing facility on Industrial Way west will be outfitted with a biohazard detection system that will sound an alarm if it senses the presence of anthrax, touching off a sequence of measures aimed at protecting postal employees and the general public.

The new system will be installed on all four mail-canceling machines at the facility beginning Aug. 14, postal officials said last week. The machines are the beginning of the mail processing and distribution system.

By Aug. 16, at least one system will be up and running, and within a week, all four will be in operation, according to James Rosciano III, manager, emergency preparedness for central New Jersey, for the U.S. Postal Service.

The regional facility handles all mail for zip codes with the prefixes 077 and 087, which originate in Monmouth and northern Ocean counties, according to George B. Flood, communications programs specialist for the New York Metro area for the U.S. Postal Service.

That’s some 450,000 pieces of mail per day.

Postal officials made the announcement of the new biohazard detection system (BDS) July 30 at a press conference at Eatontown Borough Hall also attended by county and local officials.

Those present included Sidney B. Johnson Jr., health officer with Monmouth County Regional Health Commission No. 1; Gerald J. Tarantolo, Eatontown mayor; Michael Trotta, borough business administrator; Sgt. Joseph Miller, EMS coordinator for the borough; and Lt. Jerome Brady, police patrol commander.

The conference, Tarantolo ex­plained, was to assure the public that plans are in place to deal with an anthrax incident at the postal facil­ity.

"Tarantolo said plans are to equip all regional postal facilities in New Jersey with the biohazard detection system and the Industrial Way re­gional center is the second in the state to get the state-of-the-art equipment."

Flood said the postal service will install systems at 283 postal process­ing centers nationwide by the end of 2005. He said the postal service has asked Congress to help defray the $799 million cost of installing the de­tection systems.

The BDS was developed for the postal service after an October 2001 incident in which anthrax was identified in the mail at the Hamilton Square post office and an anthrax scare at the Eatontown pro­cessing center.

While the BDS being installed will be for detection of anthrax, it has the capability of being adapted for other types of biohazard agents in the future, Flood explained.

Along with deployment of the sys­tem at the postal center, a response plan has been put in place in case there is an incident, he said.

The three components of the plan and the agencies responsible for car­rying them out are: securing the postal facility internally, which is the responsibility of the U.S. Postal Service; securing the area around the postal facility, which comes under the jurisdiction of the borough’s po­lice department and emergency ser­vices; and dispensing medication to employees who may have been ex­posed to anthrax, which will be handled initially by the county re­gional health commission.

"Everyone should feel as safe as they can from an attack," said Rosciano. "We have in-depth, pre­cise, concise plans."

Designed for the postal service, the BDS continually collects air samples from mail canceling equipment while it operates and uses sophisti­cated DNA matching to test for the presence of anthrax in the mail.

A DNA match would be picked up by the BDS computer network, con­veyed to the site-controller computer, resulting in an alarm alerting per­sonnel of a positive result. Personnel at the facility will activate the emergency action plan and evacuate the building.

Emergency management plans are aimed "first and foremost" at protecting postal employees and the public, Flood said, and at ensuring the continuity of mail operations.

"When the alarm goes off, every­one has a role to play," Tarantolo said.

According to Rosciano, a full-scale exercise involving the entire emergency management team for central New Jersey was staged at the Eatontown regional mail facility in May.

"Within 11-12 minutes we had a full evacuation and accountability of every person in the facility," he said.

Brady pointed out that the police department dispatch desk would play a large role in coordinating the response to any incident including establishing a command post where all the agencies can coordinate ef­forts.

"They will call all the people we need to come in and that will put a strain on our department," he said. "We will be calling for mutual aid from adjoining towns. They’ve as­sured us they will give us all the help we need."

Within one hour of the alarm sounding, Brady said, responders in full hazmat gear will retrieve a sam­ple that will be taken for testing to the state police lab in Trenton.

Results of the first test will be available within eight hours, and re­sults of the second test, a culture, within 24-48 hours, he said.

As emergency management coor­dinator, Miller will oversee response by fire, first aid and decontamina­tion responders.

"My job is to call in all mutual aid, fire and police departments, any equipment needed for decontamina­tion like inflatable tents," he ex­plained.

He said a staging area and com­mand post will be set up across from the postal facility in the former Manhattan Bagel building.

Up to 200 employees work at the center on any given shift. According to Rosciano, an event is most likely to occur during the 3-11 p.m. shift when the bulk of mail processing takes place.

"That’s when we’re going to have to worry the most," Miller said. "When the alarm goes off the post of­fice has a lot of trucks coming and going, transporting between facili­ties. If the alarm goes off, we’ll have to get in touch with drivers and bring them back to the Eatontown staging area."

Sounding of the alarm will signal the need to dispense a five-day course of antibiotics to employees in the building, explained Johnson.

After being evacuated, employees will be decontaminated, their clothing collected, they will shower and will be sent home.

"At the first alarm, we’ll start to set up a clinic but it won’t be a go, until the test comes back that tells us if there is a viable anthrax spore," he said.

If the results of the second test are positive, Johnson said, the clinic will begin operation, dispensing another 30 days worth of antibiotics and those exposed will be offered an anthrax vaccine. A third cycle of treatment will consist of another 30 days of antibiotics.

To reassure employees at the re­gional mail center, a hazmat decon­tamination team from the county conducted a demonstration for em­ployees working all three shifts and informational material was pro­vided.

"It’s important that employees don’t panic," Brady said. "If they don’t panic, everything should go smoothly."

"We all know our role in the event of an incident," Tarantolo said. "It looks like we’ve got all the bases cov­ered. I feel we have the situation under control."