Powder provokes scare

WASILLA -- A mysterious powder found Wednesday when an employee at Wasilla's new Sears store opened a package turned out not to be anthrax, the Mat-Su Borough's public safety department director said Thursday morning.

"Tests were negative," said the director, Kevin Koechlein. "We think the powder they saw when they dropped the package was dust on the floor."

And what was actually in the package that provoked an emergency-response furor Wednesday afternoon? "Sweaters from Uzbekistan," Koechlein said.

Koechlein said a state lab in Anchorage tested the package Wednesday night, and discovered that the powdery substance was not found inside the box.

Mat-Su Borough public safety officials on Wednesday had feared that five people were exposed to the powder, which they said was found in a Pakistan-postmarked package opened Wednesday at the new Wasilla Sears store.

"Apparently the powder "poofed" out when the package was dropped after it was opened," Bonnie Carrington, Project Impact coordinator for the borough's Department of Public Safety, wrote in an e-mail on Wednesday.

Koechlein said Wednesday the first people who came in contact with the package washed and cleaned up well. The package handler apparently notified a supervisor and Sears officials called 911.

"The package was isolated and emergency personnel were dispatched," Carrington wrote Wednesday.

Wasilla Police, the borough's Department of Public Safety (including Central Mat-Su Fire Department and Wasilla Ambulance) and Alaska State Troopers collaborated in the decision to call on the regional hazardous materials team.

The team took the box to the state lab in Anchorage for analysis, Carrington wrote Wednesday.

"Subsequent information indicates lesser levels of concern because it is now apparent that it is not unusual for [the Wasilla] Sears to receive merchandise from Pakistan," Carrington wrote Wednesday.

The suspicious package had been routed through a postal-customs facility in Edison, N.J., and the U.S. post office at Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, before arriving at the Sears freight receiving area on Tuesday, according to a borough release.

The new Sears store on the Seward Meridian Parkway , whose grand opening is scheduled for Saturday, was not yet open to the public when the incident occurred.

The five Sears employees believed to be exposed to the contents of the box were told to shower and their clothing was packaged for testing.

"These people have removed potentially contaminated clothing, and have showered. They have been tested with nasal swabs by State Health Department personnel," Carrington wrote Wednesday.

"If tests come back negative, no further action will be taken. If tests come back indicating a hazard, medical precautionary measures will be taken as appropriate," she wrote later in that e-mail.

Sears officials could not be reached Wednesday night.

The borough public safety department serves as the lead agency in coordinating disaster response in Mat-Su.

Koechlein said the procedure they would follow in case of a bioterrorist threat involves evacuating people from the scene, securing it, and awaiting the arrival of a detection team.

Once the scene is secure, the Anchorage Fire Department or a civil support unit from Fort Richardson -- would deal with the potentially hazardous substance, he said.