The call was like hundreds of others received by D.C. firefighters in the last few years: A woman in a downtown lobbying office had opened an envelope containing white powder and scattered the substance all over herself.
Minutes after arriving at the scene on a recent Thursday, fire officials quickly ran through a threat assessment: The woman was not showing signs of ill health. She had not reported receiving threats. Her employer was not a high-risk target. They determined that it was either a hoax or an innocent mistake.
Hazmat technician Ruth Cade prepares to enter a building on 18th Street NW to investigate a call about a white powder found in an envelope. Tests ultimately showed that the powder was harmless.
(Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)
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Even so, as police officers, bystanders and federal agents looked on, two specially trained D.C. firefighters donned protective masks, boots, gloves and breathing tanks. Looking like astronauts, they waddled into the building, carrying electronic meters and test tubes to help them confirm whether the substance was harmful.
The two firefighters, who emerged 20 minutes later with proof that their assessment had been correct, are members of the Hazardous Materials Unit in the D.C. Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services.
They are the District's first line of response to chemical, biological or nuclear attack. Fire officials say they have spent much of the last few years trying to improve the team's ability to handle such incidents. Just three years ago, in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a private consulting firm found that the hazmat team suffered from "a lack of funding, training, staffing, equipment and top fire management support." The consultants said the team was deficient in 10 areas that they measured.
Last August, serious questions were again raised about the team's abilities when 12 of 14 firefighters failed a proficiency exam that tested their knowledge of handling hazardous materials scenes and using and caring for their equipment, fire officials said.
Since the failures, the department has revamped the unit, sending most of the old technicians to other assignments and recruiting new firefighters to fill their slots. The department has dispatched the new hazmat team to out-of-state seminars about nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and started a cross-training program to give them more emergency skills. In all, fire officials say they have spent about $50,000 on training the new team members.
With the 2001 terrorist attacks and deadly anthrax mailings casting a not-so-distant shadow over their work, the 24-member hazmat team simply cannot afford to take chances with training or with how it responds to incidents, fire officials said.
"We want a professional response," said Battalion Chief Larry Schultz, who oversees the special operations division, which includes the hazmat unit. "What we do in the first 20 minutes will determine, to a large extent, how many people will live and how many will die."
Observers say the team has improved in the last year.
"They are better off than when they failed the test," said D.C. Council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), who chairs the council's judiciary committee. "I'm not sure there is anything more important than hazmat training in the post-September 11 world."
Before the anthrax mailings began here in October 2001, leaving five dead and sickening 17 others, the hazmat unit mostly responded to calls about fuel spills and natural gas leaks. Since then, the team has handled 2,100 incidents -- about 35 to 40 percent of which dealt with suspicious powders, odors or chemicals, officials estimated.
During those call-outs, team members enter a potentially contaminated building to determine the nature of a substance. Then they must figure out ways to contain any biological and chemical agents and decide how to treat victims.
While working to rescue people and assess the threat, firefighters must also collect the substance for law enforcement authorities, most often the FBI.
