Follow-on to WPB radiation "incident"

["Jim Hardeman" <Jim_Hardeman@dnr.state.ga.us>]

Folks *



Another new article ... URL = http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/martin_stlucie/epaper/2005/01/28/m4b_radiation_0128.html



Jim



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Possibility of radiation leak surprised firefighters



By Thomas R. Collins

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer



Friday, January 28, 2005



WEST PALM BEACH * The call came through as one heard time and again on emergency scanners: "possible structure fire." The 17 firefighters that headed to the scene on Wednesday afternoon in downtown West Palm Beach didn't think they'd hear the R-word. Radiation.



That's because they rarely do. The incident that led to the evacuation of a four-block area was a situation that the fire department in West Palm Beach has almost never faced before.



"We never get radiation calls," said Special Operations Chief Patrick Morris of the West Palm Beach Fire Department. "That was the first radiation call I'd ever been on."



The call came in at 2:47 p.m. from the Corradino Group, an engineering firm that does highway construction and has offices a few blocks south of Clematis Street on South Dixie Highway. They reported smoke coming from the walls of the building.



When firefighters arrived, the building already was being evacuated. The offices included machines that use radiation, employees told them. They're "density gauges," which measure the density of the ground for construction purposes.



Then things got hectic. The firefighters went back out to the trucks and got a machine they almost never use: the Rad Alert 50, which detects the presence of radiation. It registered 96 "clicks," meeting the threshold for enough radiation to be worried about.



Then the city's hazardous materials unit was called, along with the FBI in case terrorism was involved, the Palm Beach County Health Department, the Florida Bureau of Radiation Control, and police officers galore.



The hazmat team broke out the Pancake Probe, a more sophisticated device that measures actual amounts of radiation, which the Rad Alert 50 can't do.



Morris admitted to thinking about the possibility of exposure to gamma radiation * which can be blocked only by titanium and lead.



"You'd have to have a lead suit and I don't know if they make one of those."



People on the street were nervous. 



"People were on their phones," said James Scianno, owner of the Purple Lotus Kava Room across the street from The Corradino Group. "They were saying, 'Hey, hey, there's a radiation leak.' "



Assistant Police Chief Guillermo Perez said: "We're trained at people shooting at us and civil unrest, but it's pretty hard to train for radiation that you can't see."



As rush hour arrived, Banyan Boulevard was made one-way going west to get people out of downtown quickly. And traffic heading west on the middle bridge at Okeechobee Boulevard was diverted north and south to keep it out of downtown.



In the end, the readings showed radiation levels were normal for a room containing the density gauges. The smoke * there was no actual fire * was caused by a light on an outside wall that had malfunctioned and sent acrid smoke inside the building.



Morris and Perez said the incident was an excellent training exercise. Mayor Lois Frankel expressed relief.



"It was a very good response, no panic. And I felt very good about it."







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