GREENVILLE –  In cooperation with City of Greenville Local First Responders, Greenville Emergency Management Team and U. S. Postal Service Emergency Management Team, a 2-1/2-hour exercise was conducted on Thursday, September 13, 2012, to test responsiveness to a positive Biohazard Detection System (BDS) alert at the Greenville Processing and Distribution Facility located at 204 Fair Forest Way.

The Postal Service is committed to being prepared in the event of a positive BDS Alert. This exercise will measure the effectiveness of emergency response training for all agencies involved.  Participating agencies, organizations and departments have established emergency management plans, and participants will respond according to their policies and procedures.

Local agencies joining the Postal Service for this exercise include: the US Postal Inspection Service, City of Greenville Fire Department, City of Greenville Police Department, and the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC). 

Although controllers will direct the exercise to ensure a realistic scenario, some simulation of events will occur to compensate for events that might actually occur.  There will be no impact to delivery customers or service.

Cutline: Greenville Fire Department First Responders assist Postal employees entering de-tox shower tents during Thursday’s Bio-Hazard Detection System exercise.

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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, Oxford Strategic Consulting ranked the U.S. Postal Service number one in overall service performance of the posts in the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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