No one was injured, and the Army said Thursday there was
no threat to the surrounding community in Anniston. It was unclear when operations
would resume.
The incinerator was destroying rockets filled with gelled or crystallized
GB nerve agent - also called sarin - when the alarm sounded Wednesday afternoon.
Officials were trying to determine the source of the chemical agent that
caused the alarm, which went off in an observation corridor outside a room
housing equipment used in the incineration process.
The alarm indicated a "minute" amount of chemical agent in the area, the
Army said in a statement. Sarin is extremely dangerous; just a drop can kill.
Workers put on protective masks and evacuated the corridor, located inside
the building that houses the incinerator's three furnaces. No agent left
the building, said incinerator spokesman Mike Abrams.
Alarms have occasionally sounded at the site since it began destroying weapons
six months ago, but Abrams said officials viewed the latest alarm as more
serious because of its location. Follow-up testing indicated the alarm mechanism
worked properly.
"I am not aware of another situation that has put us on edge like this did,"
he said.
The alarm sounded at 4:39 p.m. CDT, and incinerator operators notified emergency
officials at the Anniston Army Depot about three hours later after assessing
the situation. The depot, in turn, notified county and state emergency management
officials.
David Ford, a spokesman with the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency,
said area officials were not informed of the alarm until about four hours
after it sounded.
But the delay "seems appropriate" because the Army had to confirm the presence
of sarin before issuing any notification, and no chemical agent escaped the
building, Ford said.
Some 35,000 people live within nine miles of the incinerator, in east Alabama
about 50 miles east of Birmingham. The incinerator is the Army's first to
be located in a populated area.
About 2,254 tons of Cold War-era chemical weapons were stored at the depot
for more than 40 years in earth-covered, concrete-reinforced bunkers. The
incinerator has destroyed 17,919 rockets and 19,437 gallons of liquid GB
since it began operations last year.