TRUMBULL COUNTY White powder scares are all groundless

No anthrax has been found in Ohio, officials said.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Scores of white powder scares in Trumbull County have proved groundless, and officials say public concern about mail-borne anthrax has begun to subside.
Local authorities were swamped with calls about suspicious mail in the days after initial reports of anthrax in letters sent to Florida and New York news organizations.
"Until someone tests positive, I'm not going to worry," said Don Waldron, the head of Trumbull County's Hazardous Materials Response Team.
On Oct. 15, Waldron spent 12 hours scrambling from address to address in Trumbull County collecting letters the recipients deemed suspicious. Between Oct. 15 and Oct. 17, Trumbull County 911 recorded 44 calls from people concerned about their mail.
There have been only 16 additional calls since then, said Tim Gladis, the director of Trumbull County 911.
"They've leveled off quite a bit," said Gladis.
Information: He credited information from the post office and other sources, telling customers what to look out for, with the drop in false alarms. These recommendations can be found at the Postal Service's Web page, www.usps.com.
No one in Ohio has come down with anthrax. None of the 600 suspicious packages forwarded to the Ohio Department of Heath from around the state has tested positive for the bacteria, said George Buccella, deputy Trumbull County health commissioner.
That number includes several from Trumbull County, sent on at the recommendation of the FBI. Neither Buccella or Waldron would elaborate on those cases.
The cost: It costs about $100 to test a letter for anthrax, Waldron said.
Since last week, letters reported as "suspicious" are no longer being picked up by the county hazardous materials team, but rather just tagged and stored in an unused Warren Police Department substation, Buccella said.
The county health department catalogs the letters as they come in, and they can be pulled out and examined if someone actually contracts the disease, he said.
siff@vindy.com