Anniston Star
December 31, 2002

A Matter of Trust: 'Don't call 911'

By Jason Landers
Star Staff Writer
12-31-2002

He has climbed the ranks earning a living in buildings swallowed by fire. Bill Fincher doesn't shun responsibility or danger. That's not what a firefighter's job entails.

The job is crawling blind on a floor, pressing your leg against the wall for a guide; and fumbling through a maze of rooms in black, choking smoke that clouds all visibility; and fighting flames while baking in a three-layered suit with a heavy air tank strapped on your back.

Firemen face danger and wipe the sweat from their brow. But Anniston's fire chief says he will back away from ordering his firefighters into an incident involving chemical weapons.
Turnouts - a firefighter's standard protective-gear - are no defense against nerve and blister agent.

"As it stands now, if we are not protected, we cannot protect others," Fincher said. "I don't have the capability to do anything."

About the only role the department can play should an accident occur, Fincher said, is provide help along evacuation routes. "And I'm somewhat hesitant about that. It would be dangerous if the wind direction changed."

The dilemma Fincher faces is one the Army brought here when, in the 1960s, it shipped chemical weapons by the trainload to the Anniston Army Depot. Those weapons are growing old, unstable, leaking; and the risk of storage increases with time, raising the threat to the community as well.

The Army plans to start destroying the weapons at a billion-dollar incinerator sometime during the first months of 2003. But experts say moving the relics from their resting place presents its own hazards.

Acknowledging that communities near stockpiles deserved federal help protecting themselves, the federal government created the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness

Program in 1988. Overseen by the Army and Federal Emergency Management Agency, it readies communities surrounding the stockpiles for an incident by providing planning support and funding.

Earlier this year, the federal government budgeted money to purchase special protective suits and equipment for the Anniston Fire Department - the largest full-time department in Calhoun County. That money has arrived, but is being detained by FEMA. A last-minute change in equipment requirements, a change deemed necessary by the nation's lead fire official, David Paulison, required the reauthorization.

County officials applied for reauthorization late this summer, but Fincher said the $1.3 million in funding remains in bureaucratic limbo.

Once the money arrives, it will take about 10 months to equip and train the department.

The protective suits the department has been budgeted for offer the highest level of protection. Fincher said rescuers can wear them to target homes of special-needs populations: the bedridden and sick, latchkey kids and disabled.

Through CSEPP, Calhoun County has led the nation in identifying these populations and inputting data about them - their street address and special need - into databases. That unprecedented effort will help first responders quickly identify the homes and provide speedy relief, Fincher said.

Hermiston, Ore., Fire Chief Jim Stearns understands the frustrations his counterpart in Anniston is facing. He, too, has a chemical weapons stockpile a few miles away, at the Umatilla Army Depot. But his department is equipped for an accident, and has been since the late 1990s.

Stearns received his chemical weapons preparedness training at the federal government's premier first-responder school, the Center for Domestic Preparedness. Ironically, that school - the nation's only school that uses live nerve agent in preparing responders - is here in Anniston, where the local first responders are far from prepared.

Fincher said his department has received limited instruction from the preparedness school, and he anticipates utilizing it even more once the promised equipment arrives.

"I wouldn't be comfortable at all if we didn't have equipment and didn't have training," said Stearns. "An emergency response and equipment needs to be in place just because of the aging munitions."

Stearns brought national media attention to his department's lack of equipment by saying if a chemical accident occurred, "Don't call 911." Federal funding soon followed, and now first responders in the two-county CSEPP response zone receive an annual budget of about $1 million.

A pleasant side effect of CSEPP in Oregon was that it brought communities together because of the level of cooperation the agencies must develop, Stearns said.

"Ten years ago, I didn't know who the fire chief of Boardman (a neighboring town) was," Stearns said. "Today we work together on a daily basis. We don't see county lines as separating us anymore."