 These represent only a small sample of the hazards that exist and require your identification. Once you have accomplished this, you can begin your resource assessment, asking yourself, do I have the proper equipment, trained personnel, and logistics to conduct this operation? So the biggest question is, what can I do now that I have accomplished all this? Well, what you can do is make the general area safe. This area extends from approximately 10 feet outside your rescue area for great distances in all direction, making the general area safe consists of the following acts. Stop all traffic for 100 yards in all directions. This includes both highway traffic as well as heavy equipment operation around the site. Create an outer circle or perimeter with fire line tape to provide a means of control and access to the area. Establish command and assure your personnel understand what not to do. And once you have accomplished this, a large task in and of itself, you need to make the rescue area safe. If you have the equipment to do so, provide the victim or victims if they're still alive with oxygen and some form of head and eye protection. Have your medic assess them from a distance and make a quick visual survey of their condition. Ventilate the trench with positive pressure ventilation and cold weather or heater unit may be necessary. Ground pad the trench to distribute weight and level the spoil pile, moving it back and ground padding the front. Evaluate the interior of the trench from the ends and make sure you've identified utilities or hazards that were not seen before. If you do not have the proper equipment and training, this is as far as your operation should take you. Identification of external resources and awaiting the arrival of special operations teams or the arrival of your own resources will increase the chance of survival for you and your victims. Survival of any technical rescue incident depends on your ability to make rational decisions based on the training, teams and equipment you have access to. Failure to heed your limitations to these incidents will inevitably result in rescue or fatalities or injuries which could have been avoided. Rich? Chase, this sounds like the kind of an incident where no matter how large or small your department, you've got to exert some really strong discipline there. You've got to resist that temptation to have everybody just go rushing in no matter how bad it may seem at first. And I think that's true of all the disciplines we'll talk about today. There's a tremendous amount of control and focus that needs to be practiced in order to make these safe events. Okay. Thank you, Chase. Yes, sir. Thank you for bailing me out. No problem. Thank you, sir. All right. Now, buddy system, right? Yes, sir. There you go. Okay. Thanks. Now, our next guest is Bill Troup. Bill is a firefighter health and safety specialist with the United States Fire Administration. And we're going to talk now about the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System, something we mentioned early in the program. Bill, glad to have you here. Thanks for being with us. Thank you, Rich. Good. The National Urban Search and Rescue Response System was to develop state and local efforts in performing urban search and rescue during a major disaster or emergency. The system was developed under the auspices of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. The system is comprised of task forces, technical support teams, and technical specialists. When national urban search and rescue assets are deployed by FEMA at the request of state and local governments, in the case of a presidential declaration of a major disaster or emergency, there is no cost to local jurisdiction. During structural collapse incidents that do not require a federal response, states may choose to utilize any of the three components of the National Urban Search and Rescue System at their own expense through state to state and local mutual aid agreements. There is no federal funding involved to support urban search and rescue operations in these cases. The service delivery component of the National Urban Search and Rescue System are the 25 Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces. These groups locate, extricate, and provide initial medical treatment to victims in collapsed structures. They are trained and equipped to manage the most difficult types of collapsed structure rescues, particularly in multi-story reinforced concrete building collapses. National Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces are located throughout the country and are sponsored by state and local jurisdictions. FEMA provides the criteria and standard operating procedures for task force development, training, and operations. FEMA has committed to fully developing 25 Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces for national service. These groups were selected in September of 1991 based upon personnel and equipment assets, geographic location, and ability to make a matching contribution to federal grant funds. The intent of FEMA support was to augment existing capabilities already developed by state and local sponsoring jurisdictions, which perceive a need for this type of public service in their communities. FEMA's financial support enables task forces to purchase equipment and participate in specialized training. Since these groups are trained to accomplish the most complicated search and rescue mission, task force personnel conducting search and rescue activities are exposed to many risks and hazards when carrying out assignments. Examples of these risks include earthquake aftershocks, unstable structures, falling material, flying objects, hazardous materials, confined space operations, smoke and fire, contaminated air and water, heavy lifting, fatigue, stress, and adverse weather conditions. Due to these and other factors, it is absolutely essential that all task force members recognize the high priority that safety and welfare issues command. The Urban Search and Rescue Task Force is composed of a total of 56 highly trained individuals which can support 24 operations and is led by two task force leaders who direct primary task force activities. The task force includes a four person Department of Defense or DOD liaison team composed of two liaison specialists and two communication specialists who facilitate external communications and logistical resupply. The remaining task force members are divided into four main task force teams which include search, rescue, medical, and technical teams. The task force leaders I have just mentioned have the primary responsibility to ensure that good safety practices are identified in task force operational action plans that all operations are monitored for compliance and all operations are monitored for compliance. Even when a task force is in a state of readiness waiting to respond to an incident, safety considerations are extremely important to task force operations. Ongoing safety measures include ensuring that tools and equipment are properly maintained, use and safety reference cards are stored with the equipment, and all personal safety items stored in the equipment cache are stocked at the appropriate level at all times. Task force members should be well practiced in the use of their specialized equipment, maintain the appropriate inoculations and physical fitness levels, and be trained in hazard identification and mitigation procedures. As I mentioned, the majority of task force personnel are divided into four teams, search, rescue, medical, and technical. The search team consists of two search team managers, four specially trained canines and their handlers, and two technical search specialists. This team is responsible for utilizing canines and technical search equipment to locate trapped victims. The combination of canine and technical search facilitates more accurate identification of entrapped victims. The search component plays an extremely important role since faster detection of victims greatly increases the potential for victim survivability. Survivability rates exponentially drop after 72 hours of entrapment. In addition, more accurate searches and detections facilitate safer rescue operations for task force personnel who do not have to cut, breach, and sure larger sections of the building to identify a victim's location. The rescue team is composed of two rescue team managers with four rescue squads. Each rescue squad consists of one leader and five rescue specialists for a total of a 26 member rescue team. This team performs the highly labor intensive victim extrication by utilizing the special skills of its members to cut, shore, and breach steel reinforced concrete. The rescue team member faces greater risks due to the nature of this activity and the length of work time in the highly unstable structure. The third component of the task force is the medical team. It is composed of two medical team managers and four medical specialists including physicians, paramedics, or equivalent. The medical team is specialized in crush and confined space medicine and provides pre-hospital and initial emergency care to structural collapse victims. This team is not intended to be a free-standing medical resource and must be viewed as an integral component part of the overall urban search and rescue task force. The medical team is attached to the task force primarily to attend to the needs of the task force members and to stabilize extricated victims found. The technical team is headed by two technical team managers and consists of two structural engineers, two hazardous materials specialists, two heavy rigging and equipment specialists, two technical information specialists, two communication specialists, and two logisticians. This team provides overall support to task force operations in the areas of hazards evaluation, technical documentation, communications, logistics, and structural integrity assessment. Several of the technical team members are responsible for ensuring the safety of the environment in order that the risks of performing search and rescue operations are minimized. Structural engineers verify that the building is structurally sound for entry and continually monitor the effects of cutting, breaching, and shoring operations to the structural integrity of the building. Hazardous material specialists constantly monitor the environment for hazardous substance which could affect the health and safety of task force personnel operating in the building. You may have noticed in this discussion of the search, rescue, medical, and technical teams that there is no formal position of task force safety officer. Safety, including critical incident stress monitoring, is not the duty of one individual but of all task force members. Each individual must assume a personal responsibility to conduct their assignment in a professional and safe manner. Identify unsafe acts and hazardous conditions and mitigate these conditions when possible and immediately report them to their supervisor. Responsibility for safety is equally shared by everyone involved in the urban search and rescue mission. Basic operating guidelines direct a fully functional task force to utilize its 56 members to support 24 operations in two 12-hour shifts. The task force with its requisite equipment is designed to be self-sufficient for 72 hours after which time the Department of Defense will begin resupplying the task force. Respond to their designated point of departure within 6 hours of activation. Ensure that personnel are multifunctional and cross-trained using standardized equipment and training and using the incident command or ICS system and ensure the task force's report to the incident commander in the affected local jurisdiction. In addition to the 25 task forces, the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System contains Urban Search and Rescue technical support teams. These teams are designed to deploy to a disaster site in advance of any actual urban search and rescue task force deployment as part of the Federal Interagency Emergency Response Team. The technical support team provides personnel to the emergency response team to recommend to the federal coordinating officer and the state how the task forces can be best utilized and how many may be needed. The technical support team also provides personnel to deploy to the field to perform an assessment of the need for national urban search and rescue assets in the affected area. In addition to the task forces and technical support teams, the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System consists of a group of technical specialists who possess distinctive expertise in areas of search and rescue that you see listed here. These include firefighting, search, rescue, technical, and medical fields. These individuals may perform advisory functions to federal, state, and local jurisdictions in urban search and rescue planning and development and provide technical assistance during actual emergencies or disasters. In the event of a major disaster or emergency, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials receive the notification of the event from various sources including the affected state or the National Emergency Coordinating Center. If the event warrants federal activity, FEMA contacts the state emergency management agencies sponsoring the task forces to alert or activate the task forces. FEMA also mobilizes national urban search and rescue technical support teams. FEMA will further alert the public health service which activates the medical team members for federal service under the National Disaster Medical System, or NDMS, and the Department of Defense which is responsible for transporting the specialized national urban search and rescue task forces to the affected jurisdictions and providing basic and light search and rescue companies. FEMA urban search and rescue assets may be activated prior to an event such as a hurricane and would be staged closer to a potentially affected area. The technical support team in the field assists federal and state governments in determining the need for additional national urban search and rescue assets or the state may request such assets in a declaration of a major disaster or emergency. Task forces will be selected for deployment based on an assessment of the disaster, task force readiness for deployment, geographic location of the task forces relative to the incident, and availability of transportation. Task forces selected for deployment may decline the mission due to urgent requirements in their particular state or jurisdiction. After an activation notice and acceptance of the mission, the task force leadership performs a call-down of registered individuals who report to a pre-designated assembly point. Here, the task force members are in process, personal gear is issued to members, and equipment is collected, secured, inventoried, and loaded for transport to the point of departure. Task forces are required to report to the point of departure within six hours of activation notice. Special safety measures are taken by the task forces even at this early stage of task force deployment. Activities include monitoring heavy lifting during loading and unloading of equipment, ensuring appropriate safety and other personnel gear items are issued to task force members and assessing the physical and mental condition of personnel, especially those who are coming off their normal shift at time of activation. The point of departure is assigned by the Department of Defense and is usually the closest military or civilian airport at the point of departure. The task force meets with the military liaison team and obtains a pre-flight briefing, which includes a discussion of safety procedures on military airlift. Also during this phase, task force equipment is palletized and loaded on the aircraft, canines and personnel board for departure, and pre-flight manifests and other reports are generated. At the point of departure, heavy loading and unloading of equipment must be supervised, caution must be taken to mitigate possible hazards from loading ramps, narrow steps, moving vehicles and aircraft, and strenuous lifting. Task force logisticians are taught the military safety procedures for loading and palletizing equipment for transport aboard military airframes. During the flight from the point of departure to the point of arrival, task force leaderships will present in-flight briefings to the greatest extent possible and review the field operations guide with task force members. This is also an opportunity for the task force members to get needed rest and prepare for the challenges of successfully performing specialized urban search and rescue activities once in the field. While in-flight, air protection must be worn in military aircraft and task force members must not test communications in the military aircraft due to the chance of disrupting aircraft navigational systems. Task force leaderships must ensure that personnel have access to important gear items such as additional clothing and medication. However, the cargo areas should be avoided due to load shifts during flight. On ground at the designated point of arrival, the task force checks in with the individual in charge of the facility, task force leaders contact the senior federal official in the field to receive an initial assignment, and arrangements are made for transportation of equipment and personnel to the Federal Mobilization Center or local staging area. Equipment is again inventoried at the point of arrival to facilitate property management controls. Safety consideration in this phase of operations primarily relate to monitoring loading and unloading equipment from the aircraft. Once at the Mobilization Center, task force members are further in-processed, briefed on the situation, and are issued maps if available. The state will determine task force assignments and which jurisdictions will receive federal resources. While working in local jurisdictions, the task forces will adhere to local standard operating procedures and fall under the tactical control of the local incident commander. The local incident commander has overall authority for managing all task force operations and providing tactical assignments. Once the task force leader receives an assignment to a specific field area, the task force is transported by the Department of Defense to the disaster area. It is important to ensure that all task force personnel stay together en route to the field to ensure personnel accountability. Based on the tactical assessment from the incident commander, task force leadership will quickly begin to direct search and rescue activities in the assigned area. Task force staffing patterns are established, a log of chronological events has begun, and a plan is developed for the initial work cycle for the task force. Once in the field, the task force members are given any updated information and the technical team begins to establish a base of operations. A safe location for the base of operations must be chosen where there is good sanitation, foot traffic flows easily, and security measures can be easily implemented. As I mentioned previously, there are innumerable dangers to consider during search and rescue operations. Task force management and every member has a critical responsibility to do the following. Consider safety when developing strategic and tactical plans and constantly assess the effectiveness of activities. Monitor atmospheric conditions in confined spaces for both oxygen enrichment and oxygen deficiency, and monitoring for toxic or explosive gases. Ensure that utilities are shut off, locked out, tagged and secured before beginning operations. Alert all task force personnel to the possibility of exposure to poisonous snakes, rats, spiders, wild dogs, and other animals. Ensure escape routes are preplanned, clearly identified, and absolutely understood by all personnel. Ensure the designated alerting and evacuation system is recognized by all, including the use of bull horns, air horns, and other sound devices. Ensure task force personnel have an adequate means of communication, including handheld radios with known frequencies. Monitor operations to ensure task force personnel do not work alone, no freelancing, are accountable at all times, and always wear appropriate personnel protective equipment, such as helmet, eye protection, gloves, dust masks, etc. Monitor personnel to ensure that effective equipment is used during all stages of operations. Monitor personnel to ensure that they are not overextended and that they are sent to rehabilitation before any problems occur. Take measure for the control of infectious diseases. Ensure that shoring and cribbing is the appropriate size, type is properly installed, and is properly installed. Monitor task force cash safety equipment and stocking levels. Ensure adequate ventilation and lighting is available, especially in confined space operations. Monitor and restrict helicopter overflights and the use of heavy equipment near collapsed structures to avoid excessive vibrations and downwash on unstable structures. And designate a special safety officer at any time during the operations when large-scale complex operations are underway. The decision to demobilize these task forces working in the local jurisdiction rests with a local incident commander. However, these task forces are generally operational for no longer than 10 days to facilitate safe operations. The Department of Defense provides transport to the task force back to the home jurisdiction where the sponsoring jurisdiction should have adequate staff available to support the unloading of equipment. During this period, equipment is inventory tested, forms are prepared to report damage to missing property, and equipment caches are rehabilitated. Also during the period of return to a state of readiness, task force members are given critical incidents, stress debriefings, and physical and mental fatigue and stress levels are continuously monitored. The task force holds after action meetings and prepares financial reimbursement forms, reports, and critiques of search and rescue operations. Lessons learned and recommendations for special safety issues absolutely must be highlighted and incorporated into future training sessions, field exercises, and operational procedures. To this point, I have described to you the composition of the National Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces, the functions of the technical support teams and technical specialists, and procedures for task force mobilization, deployment, operations, and return to readiness. I now like to turn to a brief report of the recent uses of the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System to give you an idea of the value of these national assets. During the response to Hurricane Andrew in Florida, the Federal Emergency Management Agency placed all of the National Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces on alert. The technical support team was deployed to the field to evaluate the need for specialized search and rescue assets and to provide technical assistance to staff in the disaster field office. An initial assessment of the situation indicated that specialized urban search and rescue task forces were not needed to assist the jurisdictions of South Florida and the alerted task forces were issued a stand-down. When Hurricane Aniki struck in Hawaii during the following month, initial needs assessment indicated the need for national urban search and rescue assets and the Los Angeles County and Menlo Park, California urban search and rescue task forces were activated and deployed. The technical support team was also deployed to the field to perform a liaison function and assist Federal Emergency Management Agency in staging the task forces. In October and November of 1992, three typhoons threatened the island of Guam. In response to Typhoon Brian in October, the technical support team was staged in Hawaii. The Orange County, California and Puget Sound, Washington urban search and rescue task forces were activated. However, they never deployed as Typhoon Brian changed course and did not seriously affect the island. The following month in response to Typhoons Elsie and Gay, technical support teams were placed on alert but not deployed. The New Mexico Urban Search and Rescue Task Force was selected for possible activation for Typhoon Elsie. Like the technical support team, this task force was never called to service due to lack of serious damage to the threatened Pacific Islands. While in recent disaster-related activities have facilitated improvement and maturation of the natural urban search and rescue response system, ongoing system development is directed by a federally recognized advisory committee. This group has comprised of policy experts from federal, state and local governments as well as nationally recognized technical and emergency service organizations. These representatives guide FEMA in the short and long-term planning, training and evaluation of components of the national system. Through the National Urban Search and Rescue Advisory Committee, six subcommittees meet to tap the hands-on experience available in the search and rescue community. These subcommittees utilize the expertise of over 100 specialists in the development and recommendation of policies and procedures in seven distinct areas. Criteria, Operations, Equipment, Communications, Management, Training and Management Information Systems, Applications. In addition to periodic guidance from the National Advisory Committee, many documents have been developed through various working groups which direct the operation of the National Urban Search and Rescue Assets. The first is the Personnel, Equipment, and Administration Description Manual. This document contains position descriptions, checklists and standard equipment lists to ensure task force uniformity. A Field Operations Guide has been developed as a quick reference for use by task force members at the disaster site. An Urban Search and Rescue Training Compendium, which lists recommended training by task force position and a bibliography of publications related to urban search and rescue are being developed. Another completed document, the Operational System Description, mandates all task force standard operating procedures and outlines task force operations during a coordinated federal response. These publications are available from the Office of FEMA Publications at 500 C Street in Washington D.C. with a zip code of 20472. As part of the operation system description, mission operational procedures have been developed which govern specific urban search and rescue activities such as task force management and coordination, rescue operations, cash packaging and communications procedures. These directives are supported by forms where appropriate and given specific directions to specialize task force responsibility. A special section on task force safety considerations can be found as part of the mission operational procedures. The last section of urban search and rescue publications I would like to bring to your attention are the student and instructor manuals developed for specialized urban search and rescue training. Instruction has been developed for task force members in the area of structural engineering, overall task force orientation, communications, canine search, logistics, crush syndrome and confined space medicine, and heavy rescue. Through these types of training, individual members of the national urban search and rescue response systems exercise and learn specialized search and rescue operation. In conclusion, I would like to thank you for your time. I hope this has been an informative description of the national overall national urban search and rescue response system and the individual task forces that form the basis of the urban search and rescue capability. The Federal Emergency Management Agency takes great pride in its partnership with 17 states, some 28 jurisdictions and more than 4500 affiliated personnel in the development and implementation of this system. This system works because the program has used a grassroots approach to developing nationally acceptable standards and criteria and operational protocol for the new area of urban search and rescue. Federal Emergency Management Agency salutes all of these personnel who have dedicated so much time, expertise, enthusiasm and effort to the development of this nationally important program. You may direct any questions regarding this program, this national urban search and rescue response system to area code 202-646-4335 or write to FEMA, the urban search and rescue program manager, 500 C Street Southwest, Washington D.C., and the zip is 20472. The fax number is 202-646-4336. Rich? Bill, thank you. A quick question. From the time of activation to the time of getting a unit on scene, what's your ballpark just general amount of time? The general rule of thumb is six hours although agencies have done it as short as two. They have to be deployable within six because you're dealing with a very short period of time. We talk about the golden hour in trauma situations. Here we have a golden day. We've got 24 hours really to get these teams on site and operational and as part of that response is getting them en route in the military aircraft to the emergency site. Okay, we'll talk about that in a minute. We're going to be back in just a moment for our first telephone session, so stay with us. We'll be right back. Hi, I'm Chuck Burkell, the National Fire Academy, and I would like to invite you to participate in a future ENET video conference Wednesday, August the 18th from 8 to 10 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time entitled Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers, Preserving a National Resource. You know, I'm sure many of you who have had the opportunity to visit the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg know full well that our fire service is provided by the Vigilant Hose Company, a volunteer service organization. And I also know that many volunteer organizations across this country in recent years have found it difficult to actively recruit and retain their members. The purpose of our broadcast is to provide to you, within the first half, how do you recruit individuals? What kinds of marketing processes and strategies do you need to participate in to recruit those individuals? In the second half, we will focus on retention. Once we have these individuals, how can we retain them for a long period of time as viable active members? So again, on Wednesday evening, August the 18th from 8 to 10 p.m., please join us for this ENET broadcast, Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers, preserving truly a national resource. Safety issues and considerations for special rescue are a very important topic that could save your life, so we hope we can help you with some information, and our guests are here now ready to take your calls. So if you have questions, here are the numbers you should call. From around the United States, everywhere but Alaska and Washington D.C., the number is 1-800-368-5781 or 1-800-368-5782. If you are calling from around the Washington D.C. area or from the state of Alaska, the number is 202-463-370 or 463-3171. Now joining me to take your calls again are Lieutenant Thomas Carr of the Montgomery County, Maryland Department of Fire Rescue Services, and Tom, as you know, spoke to you about building collapse rescue. Also, Bill Troup, who is a firefighter health and safety expert with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and we talked about the mobilization teams, and I'm sure you may have some questions about that. And also with me, Battalion Chief Chase Sargent of the Virginia Beach Fire Department, who shared with us some very valuable insights about trench rescue and below grade and confined space rescue. Now, on that point, in fact, Chase, let me bring up something. I don't know how many times we've seen in our firehouse magazines and all stories about three people going into a space, one of whom has been injured, and then two more go inside and get killed, too. What can we do, you know, short of just human nature, to stop that kind of awful thing from happening? Well, I think it's an educational process, Rich. I think that as I think all the speakers are going to stress today, we have to educate our personnel that most dead, dead, dead people stay dead, dead, dead. And that we need to make rational decisions based on the information and let our heads make the decisions rather than our hearts, especially in these special operations. But that's not easy. No, it's not easy at all. Tom, you face the same thing to some extent in building collapse situations where you've just got to give it up at some point and not risk any more people. How do you do that? And how do you train a group to do that? Again, as Chase has emphasized, it's education, it's training, it's practice. It's being familiar with what the local situation is, what the potential for survival is, understanding the process of structural collapse and what may occur, and identifying what's going on in that particular structure, and doing your best risk assessment. And that's what it's all about is making an educated, informed decision as to how you're going to proceed. You made an interesting point, too, about assessment. Sometimes what you see on the outside of the building maybe have no relationship to what you would assume is inside. You really can't make any kind of assumptions on what you really see from the outside, can you? That's absolutely true, and it's really apples and oranges. It's one assessment when you look at the outside of the structure and you get some baseline information. You also gather information from the community and occupants of the structure and that sort of thing. But it's a whole nother ball game once we identify that there's a problem inside and that there are, in fact, victims inside. It's a whole nother ball game as far as how we're going to approach that. And there's some obviously real serious safety concerns when we go inside a collapsed structure. Now, Bill, from the standpoint of a chief officer or an emergency manager in a smaller community who finds it need to call on a team, what is the primary criteria? What is the one most important thing you'd like to have that person have ready for you when you get on the scene? Well, the first thing is an assessment of the best of their abilities. And of course early notification. If they don't do something you're not equipped to do. We have a series of speakers at today's video conference to say don't get over your head. You know, if you're not equipped, trained, and have the personnel to do the job, call for help early. Don't try to do it yourself. There is a tremendous amount of assets both for the federal level and to regional technical rescue teams that you can avail yourself of. Get them there early. Don't try to do that. This is nothing to play with. Get the specialized and trained help there early. There's no shame in putting you in service en route, if necessary. No. Don't be embarrassed not to call. That's right. Yeah. Call us if you need us. Good. Let's take our first call. Gene Swanson in Portland, Oregon. Go ahead. You're on the air. Thanks for calling. Are you there, Portland? Yes, we're here. Okay, Gene. It's your turn. You're on the air. Go ahead. We'll be back with you. Oh, all right. Good. Get it together and call back. That's all right. We'll be here. We'll wait for you. That's it. That's it. Surprised you didn't we? All right. Listen, seriously though, we'll ask you when we're ready to go on the air. So once you call in, hang with us there so we can get as many calls as we can. Okay? That'd be really helpful. The size of these instances, every picture you guys showed had lots of people there. That becomes sort of a chore unto itself, doesn't it? Apart from anything else you have to deal with, don't you? Accountability, right? Accountability, an incident management system in place, practiced in advance, the cast of characters understanding how the incident should go down and what type of administration and organization is necessary to make it be a safe and effective operation. It's imperative. Okay. We've got another caller. Hope you're with us, Ron. Ron Few, East Point, Georgia. Go ahead. You're on the air. Yes. I wanted to know, with a very small fire department, what are the implications of initiating a small confined rescue unit? Okay. You know, that's a good question. A small department, Ron, do you have training in this or are you saying would it be better to start the rescue before the other team comes in? What's exactly your question, sir? Maybe some other mutual aid entity, maybe another local fire department that may be a little bit larger and have a little bit more experience. Or do you think that it'd be better for a small department to implement that small confined rescue? Chase, I guess the bottom line is if you're trained to do it, isn't it? Right. I think that that's a rather large question. My suggestion to you is that, first of all, that you train your people in-house to recognize the hazards. The most important thing that I think most of us are concerned about is keeping your own people alive. And once you get that educational perspective to where you can recognize those hazards, you're less likely to injure your own personnel. Then you can make an evaluation of how much capability both physically, excuse me, and from a training standpoint, can you put in and do you need to do that locally or should you do it regionally or look at mutual aid? But the most important thing for any department, big or small, is teach the people what hazards are there so we don't end up with additional victims. We've made a big thing over the past few years on these shows about regionalism and mutual aid. Is there a role for that in these kinds of specialized teams, Tom? Oh, absolutely. As I've said, structural collapse is always going to be a multidisciplinary, multi-agency response. And that's what makes it difficult. We're not just dealing with fire or rescue or police. We're dealing with many different agencies. And in many cases, we've not done a good job practicing with these people. We haven't identified structural engineers to help us out. We haven't identified heavy equipment operators that might be able to help us out. So, yes, it's very much necessary that we work with other agencies and get something in place before the big one occurs so that we can operate effectively when it does. Tom, let me ask you to call upon your experiences in our county, Montgomery County, which is just outside Washington, 18 separate fire rescue corporations, many of them volunteer. How do you bring together a team with groups of volunteers who may have limited amounts of time to train? I know Montgomery County has a very effective team. Share a little of that with us, will you? Well, the important thing there is training and establishing what the training requirements are going to be from minute one so that everybody understands that this is a labor-intensive, training-intensive program. And once you do that and everybody knows what the ground rules are, then it's a process of stimulating additional interest through the training. And that's the key if we provide good, informative, interesting training programs people, volunteer, career, whatever their background may be are going to be much more interested in participating. We do exercises that are of interest to everyone and it works well. Are there some basic things that can be done in the station, in-station kind of training before you get into the larger regional teams? Something that individual departments could do to get started? Sure. Everything that we're talking about today can be broken down into modules and the things that Chase is talking about, just basic awareness of the confined space standards and that sort of thing and pre-playing, all of that can be done in-station. Reading, there are a lot of informative journals out. There's a lot of information out. There's information that can be received through Bill Troop that can really set the tone for how we're going to deal with. If you just sit around the table and start talking about what happens if a building falls down? What happens if we get a call for someone in a sewer? How are we going to deal with that? I think that's the first step. Okay, let's take another call. This one from New Orleans, Burlini, LaMide. Go ahead, you're on the air. You with us? Okay, they'll be with us. Guys, please, call in, stick on the phone. Don't run off to turn down the TV or something. If you need to, I'll tell you to do that, but don't just leave us hanging here, guys, okay? Call in and stay with us and we'll get you on as quickly as we can. Bill, your teams bring a lot of people to the site. Obviously, in some cases. What do you do about feeding, housing, you bring more people to an already devastated area. You're making an impact larger than the team itself. How do you deal with that? Do you bring your own facilities as well? Yes, the teams are designed to be completely self-sufficient. The worst thing you can do in an emergency situation is to bring more people to feed, more people to drink your water. These teams have to be self-sufficient. And these teams, again, are made up of local emergency responders. They're groups of local emergency responders who have decided to join the federal program, and these folks are well-versed in their local tactical operations. With regards to the deployment, they are supported by the Department of Defense. But the first three days, they have to provide all their own food, all their own medical support, which is why they have a medical team, and all their own water, fuel, air, and other equipment supports that they need. They cannot get that from the local community. You cannot bring a technical rescue team in any shape or form into a community and draw resources from an affected jurisdiction. I think that's a very important aspect of that. Now, let me throw out something else. I read just, I guess it was in last month's firehouse, there was a very interesting article about what happens when a rescue person gets injured on the scene. Do you advocate having a special set-aside team of medics and rescuers that stand by and don't do anything, except to be ready to rescue rescuers? Is that too much to ask? No, I don't think so at all. As a matter of fact, and I'm not sure if it's just to rescue rescuers, although we always have a backup team in our system for every entry team, we always have a backup team in case something goes wrong. But we are firm believers, at least in Virginia Beach, of having cross-trained technical rescue medics which are familiar with the environment and function in that environment that do technical rescue. We found it very inefficient to take a street medic and put them in that type of environment, not because they're not a good medic, but they're not used to working in that environment and it jeopardizes their safety and the safety of everyone else. So the medic crew that just responds from the station may not be the one that you're going to put to work on that part of the incident. More than likely they will await, they will take care of the perimeter people and our people for rehab and also will receive a smooth transition of the patient out of the environment to their unit and transition of the patient care. Tom, you're nodding. I know we sort of do that in Montgomery County. Can you elaborate a little more on how you protect the rescue? Yeah, it's imperative. The considerations, the medical considerations in many cases are not the same medical considerations that a street medic might have. We're dealing with things such as crush syndrome and compartment syndrome. We're dealing with breathing, inhaling, atmospheres that may have a special course of treatment in order to save the rescuers or the victim's life. So it's a whole different set of schooling and we do, all of us, send our medics to or they receive additional training. There's a confined space medicine class that's put together through FEMA that is very important as far as understanding how to treat our patients, what we call the Grateful Dead syndrome. We've got someone who's crushed by structural components in a building and he's alive and talking to you. You release the components and pull the person out and they die. Why does that happen? We need to make sure that we train our person so they can deal with that. They can prevent those types of things from happening. So yeah, it's imperative that we've got something in place ready to go, not only to take care of our own people but to have the special understanding of what it takes to take care of the victim. But I guess we shouldn't leave it out saying though that doesn't mean to exclude the medic crews from the departments who come on the scene. It's a role for everyone on the scene. I think the one last point is that in these special operations, whether it's structural collapse or what, you need a rapid intervention team that is back and ready to take care of your people and move quickly in the event God forbid that something happens and that's not only basic rescuers with medics as well. Good enough. That's all the time we've got right now for your calls. We'll have another chance to call in a little later today. We're going to take about a one-hour break and then we'll be back. You're going to hear about Fairfax County, Virginia and a rescue team that went overseas, and I think you'll like the tape. So roll your videotapes and we're going to take about an hour break. We'll be back then. Stay with us. On Monday, July 16th, 1990, at approximately 1630 hours manila time, a strong earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale rocked the main island of Luzon in the northern Philippines. Within two hours, the U.S. rescue team under the auspices of the United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance was placed on alert and began mobilizing for response shortly thereafter. After more than 26 hours flight time from Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C., we landed at Clark Air Force Base near Manila at approximately 1030 hours local time on Wednesday, July 18th. We were immediately placed on board U.S. Air Force H-53 transport helicopters for a 50-minute ride to the stricken city of Baguio in the mountains 120 miles north of Manila. Our introduction to this mission was an unnerving view of the Hyatt Hotel as we descended into the John Hay Military Base in Baguio. Out of the high-rise windows were a telling reminder of the terror that must have ensued as the occupants fortunate enough to be on the surviving side of the building made their escape. The rescue team and equipment were shuttled in to begin the simultaneous duties of base camp setup and rescue operations. We were setting up our equipment staging area. We're at the John Hay Military Base on the mainland island of Luzon in the Philippines. Lieutenant Bickham's up on the roof right now setting up communications. As the equipment cache was shuttled in, team personnel worked quickly to organize the tools and equipment while getting a rescue team into the field as soon as possible. Equipment holding area. John Carroll Metro Day has a pretty sophisticated communications network set up. He's setting up a laptop personal computer that he can program. I think we have about 35 or 40 fully programmable. What's that, Donny? Gas needs to be at Hyatt. Gas at Hyatt, the fiber optic to Nevada. It's got fully set up repeaters. We're covering an area probably five mile radius. He programs the various radios and different configurations with the laptop computer. Donny Booth is handling equipment issues. He's being run silly. This was a clubhouse for the golf course. Also got a lot of our food supplies and everything. Tents. Out of various equipment. This is about as best orders we could get very quickly when we were trying to... As you can see, this is the Hotel Nevada. One of the two hotels received substantial damage. We've got reports of confirmed live people trapped in the building to the point that we've been able to see victims' hands moving. Apparently the first and second floor on this building collapsed. The rest of the building came up to the hotel. It's the one we did the aerial overview earlier on. Looks like six, seven stories, maybe eight stories. The newer part was probably higher. This part, apparently I've been told was the newer section which is literally laid over. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Might be anywhere from eight to 12 stories. There had been two identical buildings. This building is still standing. This building obviously failed. From what we were told, about 24 hours successful rescues were made. They had calls from many trapped people. Some people were removed approximately 24 hours after the earthquake. There was a natural gas or some type of gas leak. Fire. There was ignition. Obviously a subsequent fire. And bystanders reported that many trapped survivors were screaming. Not able to get out. Strategy sessions were important for reviewing available information and identifying team objectives. The team was up early each morning. A team briefing was conducted at sunrise to apprise all personnel of the day's mission. The Japanese team, the Brit teams, we know about are here. There's a Singapore team down in San Fernando who's ready to come in. There's three more Japanese and the Japanese party waiting to come in. The King County team just left the end of the year now coming across Pacific. They'll be in sometime probably early tomorrow morning or so. We know what we're doing today. We're looking at the outlying areas. The areas that have been identified as having collapsed structures. Recon is continuing to come in. Well everybody knows what's going on. Danny's taking his team down to a group. That's line out. They'll be leaving at 7.45. And we're coming this way. From this location? Yeah, from right here. We're going to be down here. We don't know what the length is basically. Recon, if there's anything they can do with a light rescue, they'll take care of that. Heavy rescue missions. The second module from here, which Carlos has is going to be on standby for either a local mission here to support that operation. Where's Chris? I'm here. Where's Teal? You've got the ascenders and all that stuff. As soon as the chopper pulls pitch he's going to know he's got too much weight. Put it right back down. What frequency response? At the request of Philippine officials the U.S. rescue team also conducted search and reconnaissance missions in remote outlying areas north of Baguio. The skills of the Air Force helicopter pilots were fully tested by the difficult conditions of the hot, humid air and high mountain altitude. Note the difficulty the pilot has maintaining flight. Fully maneuvers the helicopter up the grassy fairway. A running downhill start allows them to gain enough altitude to clear the trees. The scenic island beauty was a stark contrast to the harsh conditions of intense sun, heat and rain. The city of Baguio has a population of approximately 100,000 people. The hillsides crowded with hobbles were a vivid reminder of the third world nature of the islands. The cantilever construction did not usually fare well during the 7.7 shock. Despite the fact that city hospital buildings maintained their integrity and were safe for use, the staff and patients were too traumatized to re-enter them. Our team medical supervisor, Dr. Joe Barbera told of witnessing emergency cesarean operations and the like being performed outside in dusty, fly-ridden conditions. He stated the functioning neonatal facility was a local doctor's automobile with four newborns lying in the back seat. The U.S. rescue team provided medicines, tents, plastic sheeting and medical supplies to the local hospital personnel. Helicopter operations were a continuing backdrop to our command post operation.