GREEN BAY - Facing both the coronavirus pandemic and a shortage of protective face masks recently, the Green Bay Police Department began a search.

Online sellers were little help: Some had masks, but were charging many times the normal price. Bricks-and-mortar suppliers were a challenge; high-tech N95 respirator masks had been flying out the door as soon as the citizenry learned that the mask filters out 95% of small airborne particles.

Brown County sheriff's officials thought they could help. One of the office's suppliers could promptly ship the N95 masks to northeastern Wisconsin, provided the county ordered 1,000. The county department didn't need that many, but offered to split the order with the police. The police department quickly agreed; an order was placed.

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But the masks never arrived. They left a Tennessee supplier bound not for Wisconsin, but for some unspecified locale the federal government felt had a greater need.

"Everything was fine one day, but then we got a notice from the supplier that the federal government was going to take them all," Sheriff Todd Delain said. "There weren't going to be any for us."

He's uncertain which agency pulled rank to get the masks, but he and other local officials acknowledge that federal agencies are able to take supplies ticketed for local governments if they believe there is a greater need for the items someplace other than their original destination.

And the feds apparently don't have much left in the form of two key items: ventilators and N95 masks.

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Ninety percent of the federal personal protective equipment stockpile had been depleted as of Monday as the Health and Human Services Department made "final shipments" of N95 respirators, surgical and face masks, face shields, gowns and gloves, according to new documents released Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee. That includes roughly 11.7 million N95 masks — a fraction of what experts say was needed.

The remaining 10% of the stockpile, HHS said, would be reserved for federal workers. It would not be sent to the states.

That can pose problems for local departments on the front lines. Instead of battling the virus, House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney said, state and local government agencies must sometimes battle each other.

States and locals must "fend for themselves, to scour the open market for these scarce supplies, and to compete with each other and federal agencies in a chaotic, free-for-all bidding war," said Rep. Maloney, D-N.Y.

Meanwhile, the locals strive to make do.

'Scrounge, beg and borrow'

The incident illustrates some of the challenges facing police in the age of COVID-19: Not only must they deal with a threat for which they have little knowledge and training, but many must scramble to provide their people with an adequate supply of protective equipment.

The Green Bay Police Department's goal is to have several weeks' worth of supplies on hand, but that is sometimes a challenge. Before the pandemic, the department could buy 20 of the close-fitting N95 masks for $18.95, Operations Lt. Brad Strouf said.

This past week, Strouf said, a seller on eBay was asking $1,225. For two.

"There are things you have to scrounge, beg and borrow," he said. "Right now, masks are at the top of the list."

For now, the department buys what it can, accepts donations when they're offered, and gets creative when needed. That keeps Strouf busy sometimes six and seven days a week as he works to keep the department supplied. His abilities prompted Police Chief Andrew Smith to admiringly compare him to Radar O'Reilly — the Nehi-drinking "he-can-get-us-anything" company clerk on the "M*A*S*H" television series.

This past week, Smith said, the department had enough N95 masks to provide each officer with two, and each detective with one. The chief?

"I found two old masks with deteriorated elastics in a corner of my garage," he said. "I had them for years from a sanding project."

In the span of about 45 minutes while Strouf and a reporter spoke on the phone, a shipment of 1,000 surgical masks arrived at police headquarters; officers can use those on people they're taking to jail. A donation of 25 hand-sewn face masks also arrived.

They joined hand sanitizer made by local pharmacists, respirator masks from a body shop and sanitizing wipes the Green Bay School District donated when it became clear the schools weren't going to reopen for a while, in a supply cache with other items that arrived via purchase, trade or donation.

There's a very good reason departments are stocking up: A Green Bay officer was infected in late March.

That meant a 14-day quarantine while he recovered. The six officers with whom he was in close contact on March 29 also were quarantined, the department said.

Twelve-hour-shifts

The pandemic has forced departments to be creative with everything from car use to protective equipment and staff schedules.

Adjustments can be as simple as finding spare materials to block gaps in the plexiglass separating the front and back seats in a patrol car, so a coughing or sneezing prisoner doesn't endanger an officer's health. It can be as complicated as moving officers who typically work five consecutive eight-hour shifts followed by two days off, to a schedule of six straight 12-hour shifts followed by extended time off to minimize "cross contact" between officers.

"We have done enormous changes, and continue to make adjustments almost daily," Appleton Police Chief Todd Thomas said. "We know that if our officers aren’t healthy, nothing else we do matters."

Early on, Thomas said, Appleton identified scheduling changes as a key to minimizing the chance an officer could pass the virus to a fellow employee. With consent of the officers' union, staff was divided into four teams of 19 officers and three supervisors.

Each team covers a six-day period, during which members have no contact with other teams; no one else uses their squad cars. After day six, cars are sanitized while the next team hits the streets in cars that previously were cleaned.

The approach was adapted in the past few weeks from one in use in Wausau, Thomas said.

"If we have several officers get quarantined," he said, "we can fill in with officers from the other team or a standby team."

Contributing: USA TODAY Reporter Nicholas Wu.

Contact Doug Schneider at (920) 431-8333, or DSchneid@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @PGDougSchneider