Marion County Fire Rescue’s hazardous materials crews have responded to reports of a fishy white powder in local government offices three times within the past 18 months, including one incident in June that targeted 11 different locations on the same day, reports Ocala StarBanner.
Ultimately, potential terrorism proved to be an unfunny prank because each time the substance was benign.
While the importance of the high-profile targets in those three cases — schools, the courthouse, the Sheriff’s Office — garnered them considerable attention, hazmat responders roll to someone’s perceived emergency more often than many might think.
On average, fire department records show, the county’s hazmat squad deploys about every other day, investigating and mitigating all types of situations — from industrial spills to petroleum leaks at car wrecks and from crystal meth labs to those mysterious white powders, which in one recent case turned out to be the flour at the bottom of a box of KFC biscuits.
Fire department data also indicate that for 2014 the unit’s volume of calls has already reached roughly the same number as it did in each of the two prior years.
But cutbacks in federal spending have county Fire Rescue officials rethinking and redirecting their hazmat mission, and as that occurs the burden on local taxpayers might get heavier, resources may be shifted from other services, or the county may have to rely on other agencies outside the community for aid, officials say.
Diminished is the emphasis on identifying and containing possible weapons of mass destruction, something that could raise the worry level in a community that has emerged more than once as a potential terrorist’s playground.
