Bellingham letter tested response to anthrax threat

Associated Press

BELLINGHAM — Tony and Lynne Zold had decades of experience in crisis counseling. It all came in handy when the Lummi Island couple faced their own fears last fall.

In October, when much of the nation was transfixed by reports of deadly anthrax exposures in the East, the Zolds opened a letter they thought was from friends overseas. A brownish powder spilled from the envelope.

"It didn’t go ‘poof’ so much as it dribbled out," Lynne Zold said. "There was about a tablespoon. I just stared at it for a second, and time slowed down."

On Oct. 16, the Zolds became the first Whatcom County residents to report a credible anthrax letter threat. Their case — which proved negative for anthrax — helped emergency response workers here fine-tune their practices.

Lynne Zold, a family mental health counselor, said the letter, sent from a U.S. Army base in Germany by Idaho friends, did not include the Zolds’ exact address.

When powder spilled from it as she opened it, she quickly covered the letter with a salad bowl, then closed off the room and washed herself off.

She told her husband, a former Army psychologist, who put on a painter’s mask and gloves and used tongs to check the letter and read the first lines to make sure it was indeed from friends. He then sealed the letter in a plastic bag.

The couple called the FBI, and before long the county’s Specialized Emergency Response Program team was on its way.

It was a learning experience for everyone.

The Zolds found out their friends had apparently sent 15 letters from a base near Frankfurt, Germany. That nation alone reported more than 100 anthrax scares in early October.

The Zolds said FBI officials speculated that someone used a syringe to inject the powder into the letter. The couple never learned what the substance actually was, only that it was not a biological threat.

"We hunted the friends down, we got some information about anthrax, alerted our physician, and decided that we had to become kind of active participants because the system wasn’t quite set yet," Tony Zold said.

Whatcom County’s Specialized Emergency Response Program, the only team of its kind north of the Seattle area, also was learning.

Since Sept. 11, the team has responded to 21 possible anthrax calls, with three — including the Zold case — were considered credible threats, said Bellingham firefighter Steve Lamoureaux, the local hazardous materials team leader. In no case was any anthrax found.

The system has improved with each response, he said. Clear lines are now drawn between disease control and criminal investigations, and how agencies coordinate and communicate, Lamoureaux said.

"We’ve already gone through a few generations of plans," he said. "It’s an evolving science, and the calls have dropped off pretty much to nothing. I hope it continues that way."

As the number of cases mounted, the county health department made changes that included better coordination with law enforcement and emergency management organizations and better coordination with doctors and hospitals.

One of the biggest problems was the length of time it took to get test results back from the state lab, which was overwhelmed with samples at the time, Lamoureaux said.

It took six days and calls to scores of agencies to get the confirmation that the Zolds’ letter did not contain anthrax.

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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