How likely is a germ or chemical attack by terrorists in Snohomish County? Not great, experts say, but health officials are gearing up anyway so they can be ready.
By Todd C. Frankel
Herald Writer
Stored on a computer at the Snohomish Health District office is an disaster response plan, including how to deal with a bioterrorism attack. But it is far from finished. Work on the report started several months ago, but it was a low priority, just another task on top of regular duties.
Now, as federal authorities warn that terrorists might be planning to follow up the Sept. 11 attacks with germ warfare, finishing the report has taken on new urgency, says county health officer Dr. M. Ward Hinds.
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However, the report likely will not be completed until year’s end, providing one example of how relatively unprepared the nation’s public health departments are to handle the suddenly real threat of bioterrorism, such as exposure to anthrax or plague, poisoning of the water supply, or a chlorine gas leak.
Asked if Snohomish County is ready, Hinds had to think for a moment.
"A small one — we’d probably be OK," he said. "A big one? No."
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Just how likely is an attack with biological or chemical weapons?
Many of the precautions being taken point to an alarming answer. Crop-dusting planes are grounded briefly. TV news helicopters still can’t fly. Trucks hauling hazardous materials are newly suspicious. Gas masks and olive-green chemical warfare suits are the newest fashion in fear.
Tom Preston, a national security expert at Washington State University who studies worst-case scenarios and the nation’s susceptibility to terrorist attacks, says people need to be thinking, not worrying, about such an incident.
"It’s an area of concern, but I don’t think it’s as immediate as it’s being portrayed," Preston says.
The crop duster as spreader of disease is probably one of the most fearsome examples. Preston says the chances that a terrorist would be able to effectively use a crop duster for that purpose are "fairly remote." It is not as simple as loading the plane up with anthrax spores and setting course for a populated area.
"You couldn’t just stick stuff in there and use it," he says. "You’d have to modify it."
Biological agents are sensitive to air, difficult to cultivate and need to be dispersed in sufficient concentrations to do harm. Smallpox is being tossed around as one particularly gruesome threat, but there are only two known stockpiles in the world, with the Russian and U.S. governments.
"To imagine that people gathered in a garage are going to be able to manufacture a biological threat stretches credibility," Preston says. "It’s not that easy to do."
A terrorist attack involving industrial chemicals is a more likely scenario, Preston says. One scenario imagines that a truck hauling chlorine gas pulls up and leaks its cargo into a building’s air intake system. Or a truck carrying flammable cargo is equipped with a bomb, like the Ryder truck with fertilizer used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Concerns like these prompted a nationwide review of truckers licensed to carry hazardous materials. Last week, FBI agents arrested 18 people, including four Seattle-area men, on charges of fraudulently obtaining those specialized licenses. Two of the men are from Everett.
Even with the right trucking credentials, Preston says an attack would be difficult to pull off. He compares it to someone getting a pilot’s license: The license does not mean you have access to a plane. A terrorist truck driver would still need to secure a trailer filled with the right cargo. One of the least worrisome is a truck hauling radioactive waste, he says. The waste is usually found at very low levels of radioactivity, requiring someone to swim in it to get a deadly dose.
"There are lots of cargoes that wouldn’t be a problem," Preston says.
Ron Mattson of Everett says he’s not taking any special precautions in anticipation of a chemical or biological attack. Yet, he thinks the region is at risk, with the Boeing plant and military base in Everett.
"I think this area in general would be a prime target," says Mattson.
Louie Quesnell, a father of two in Everett, says he, too, is not doing anything differently. A Mariners game would be the perfect spot for a terrorist attack, but Quesnell says he will let his children go to a game next week anyhow.
"There’s probably not a day that goes by that I don’t think about what’s happening," Quesnell says. "But you can’t let them control your life."
The main reason Quesnell and Mattson say they are not worried about a bioterrorist attack is that they can’t imagine what they could do to avoid it.
"By the time you would know it," Mattson says, "it’d be too late."
Meanwhile, county agencies are moving to improve their potential responses. The Snohomish Health District and the county’s Department of Emergency Preparedness will participate in a table-top bioterrorism exercise sponsored by the state Department of Health in November. Officials will work out on paper how they plan to respond to a surprise scenario.
It will be the first such exercise for the county’s public health officials, Hinds says.
But any practice for a terrorist attack has to be targeted at the unknown, the unimaginable, Preston said. If the Sept. 11 hijackings showed us anything, it is that terrorists are striking in new ways.
"We have to be vigilant to different avenues of attack," Preston said. "The challenge for us is to be thinking of stuff that is right under our noses."
You can call Herald Writer Todd C. Frankel at 425-339-3429
or send e-mail to frankel@heraldnet.com.
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