Authorities urge calm in Nevada

Jeff German and Mary Manning

Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2001 | 10:31 a.m.

Authorities are moving to quell public hysteria over the latest round of anthrax scares in Nevada and around the country.

"I think everybody's a little on edge," Gov. Kenny Guinn said this morning. "We certainly want everybody to continue to be observant and vigilant because that's the way to protect yourselves. But on the other hand, we want everybody to be calm."

Frank Siracusa, director of the Nevada Emergency Management Division, echoed those words.

"We're investigating everything," Siracusa said. "But we need people to calm down and not be so panicky."

Siracusa, in charge of coordinating the state's response to any terrorist or biological threats, said the Emergency Operations Center in Carson City and health officials in Reno and Las Vegas have been swamped with calls from people jittery about the possibility of being exposed to anthrax.

"I think we're doing what we need to be doing," Siracusa said. "People have a right to be concerned, but they shouldn't stop going on living."

Even as calm was being urged, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman received his own anthrax scare when he left City Hall on Monday.

Goodman noticed a white powdery substance on the ground by the driver's side of his car at the City Hall parking garage, spokesman Erik Pappa said.

The FBI was notified and the Clark County Fire Department's Hazardous Materials Team was called to the scene to test the substance for anthrax, but it turned out negative, Pappa said.

Guinn, meanwhile, said the number of calls to emergency officials have dropped "substantially" within the past 24 hours, as authorities stressed there has been a minimal health risk to last week's discovery of anthrax in a letter sent to Microsoft offices in Reno.

None of the six people exposed to the letter have tested positive for anthrax, officials said.

Guinn said he was waiting this morning for test results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to see whether the anthrax at Microsoft was the deadly inhaled strain or a harmless strain used in vaccines.

The widespread anthrax alarm comes as Southern Nevada health officials and fire and police agencies scurried Monday to put together guidelines to give authorities and the public a clear idea of how and where to report potential biological threats.

"There are a lot of people who are very scared right now," Clark County Health District spokeswoman Jennifer Sizemore said. "We're still hammering out a protocol to handle all these calls."

Bob Andrews, director of the Clark County Emergency Management Office, met Monday with representatives from public safety agencies across the Las Vegas Valley to create a standardized response plan.

Officials were hoping to make public the guidelines today.

The FBI, bogged down with anthrax inquiries amid its massive criminal investigation into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was trying to steer people to reporting biological concerns to health officials first.

"We're trying to get out of the anthrax business until it's legitimately anthrax," Las Vegas FBI spokesman Daron Borst said. "Right now we're looking at the state and local level to handle the initial response to determine if it's a public safety threat."

Borst said the FBI is continuing to investigate the lone confirmation of anthrax found in the Microsoft letter, which was sent from Malaysia.

Metro Police are encouraging people who believe they have received suspicious mail to call the department's non-emergency phone number so that the 911 system does not become overloaded, Lt. Vincent Cannito said.

"If people get a letter or package that they aren't sure about, we're asking that they call our non-emergency 311 line," Cannito said. "Certainly if there is an emergency involving a spill of hazardous materials, we don't want to discourage anyone from calling 911."

Cannito said police have received 31 false alarms since Friday.

Siracusa said about three dozen suspicious letters turned in by people in Northern Nevada have been sent to the state lab for anthrax analysis. Additional letters were being examined by health officials in Reno and Las Vegas.

But none of the letters so far has tested positive for traces of anthrax, he said.

"As far as I've been told," Borst added, "none of them (is) legitimate except for the one on Reno."

Meanwhile, federal, state and local government employees who handle mail were given special training and advice Monday to spot suspicious letters.

Vic Fenimore, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Las Vegas, said there were no unusual discoveries by those sorting the mail at the main post office at Paradise and Sunset roads.

"It's just business as usual," Fenimore said. "Everybody is more aware, but we're still using the same methods of processing the mail."

Siracusa said all employees at state mail rooms across Nevada were provided with special safety instructions Monday before dispatching mail to various agencies. Training was planned this week.

City mail room workers were given a "common sense briefing" Monday about what items to single out, Goodman said.

"It was a very general briefing designed to put everybody at ease," Goodman said.

Clark County Manager Thom Reilly sent out a memo to county employees outlining numerous precautionary measure they can take when handling mail.

"We're putting a few internal procedures in place, said Gwen Castaldi, the county's director of public communications."We're trying to operate pretty much business as usual."

Employees at all government agencies were being given the option of using latex gloves and masks when opening mail.

Caught up in the scare Monday were several apparent false reports of anthrax found on commercial airlines linked to Nevada.

A Continental Airlines flight from Las Vegas with 155 passengers was quarantined at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport after a flight attendant noticed a white power in a rear bathroom, Continental Airlines spokesman Rahsaan Johnson said.

The FBI, police and a hazardous materials team boarded the plane and tested the substance, which was identified as toilet tissue residue.

The passengers were evacuated and released.

An American West flight from Phoenix to Reno was grounded Monday morning after a similar discovery, but the powdery substance was harmless, officials said.

And firefighters were called to San Francisco International Airport Monday, where a National Airlines flight crew from Las Vegas noticed a white powder on the airplane floor near a rear bathroom. The hazardous materials team collected the powder for lab analysis. The results are not known.

Another scare occurred at Opportunity Village, 6300 W. Oakey Blvd.

A staffer there found white grains in mail she brought to the office from her home at 7:15 a.m. Monday. The mail was postmarked from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

More than 250 people were evacuated, and authorities closed the building and began testing the substance for anthrax.

Preliminary tests were negative.

Sun reporters Jace Radke and Launce Rake contributed to this report.