Contact: Julia Jarema
Date: Aug.13, 2009
Phone: (919) 715-3747 or (919)422-8814

RESPONDING TO THE CALL, SEARCH AND RESCUE TEAMS MEET THE CHALLENGE AND SAVE LIVES 

By Julia Jarema, Public Information Officer N.C. Division of Emergency Management

When Hurricane Floyd struck in September 1999, dozens of search and rescue teams were scattered across the state. Skill levels and capabilities varied widely. Most teams consisted of two to three volunteers who wanted to help rescue stranded citizens, were equipped with a boat and, in some cases, had rudimentary training. The more advanced teams were comprised of four to six individuals who had some swift water rescue training and were outfitted with an inflatable, motorized boat.

A technical rescue resource manual developed three years earlier (following Hurricane Fran) provided a list of available teams with basic rescue capabilities. In the hours and days following Floyd's landfall, those teams were vital to the state's rescue efforts. Thousands of people and their pets are alive today because of the hard work of those dedicated volunteers. But the response also highlighted a severe need for a coordinated statewide program with more consistent training.

“Rescue efforts during Floyd showed us that many teams were not properly equipped, nor trained for the job they were being sent to do,” said Doug Hoell, director of the N.C. Division of Emergency Management. “We're very fortunate that these teams were able to save as many people as they did, but the outcome could have been much different.”

While there have long been basic training and equipment standards for search and rescue programs, lessons learned from Floyd (and later the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001) led to stronger standards that would ensure the safety of first responders working in extraordinary circumstances.

Prior to 1999, local search and rescue teams were only trained to work in the environment and on events that were typical for their area, such as responding to a distressed boater on a local pond or river. Most had no training to help residents trapped in flooded homes or motorists swept away by rising floodwaters.

Providing reliable assistance

Following Floyd, the Division Emergency Management worked with local communities and counties to develop a new way to do business during disasters. The goal was to provide consistent training and equipment so that rescue teams could aid neighboring jurisdictions during a crisis regardless of the conditions or terrain.

Local rescue teams are not now, nor have they ever been, required to meet state standards to operate in their town or county. But if they want to be dispatched to help with search and rescue missions in other parts of the state, they must complete the more stringent state-mandated training. In fact, many of the current swift water rescue teams developed because they received assistance during Hurricane Floyd and wanted to be able to reciprocate when the need arose.

Teams are comprised mostly of local volunteer fire fighters, law enforcement officials or emergency medical technicians from the local rescue squad. To qualify as one of the state-approved search and rescue teams, the members must complete additional training in advanced swift water techniques.

The state's Swift Water Rescue Teams are grouped into four types depending on the level of assistance needed. The most basic team, Type 4, consists of a crew leader and four rescue technicians who have been trained in still water rescue. The watercraft may be a flat-bottomed boat, Jet Ski or other small vessel. These are the teams that are most often sent to rescue people from their homes or vehicles during early flooding. The Type 3 team has the same number of people, but the crew has received advanced training in swift-water rescue and uses a motorized, inflatable boat, similar to those used by the Coast Guard and military Special Forces units. Type 3 teams recently assisted Northampton County officials in the search for a missing boy on the fast moving Roanoke River.

The Type 2 team is simply two Type 3 teams combined with the addition of four support staff to coordinate medical, logistical and communications issues with local law enforcement or hospitals. Typically sent on larger or more complicated missions, Type 2 teams were used in June to rescue a stranded church youth group that had gone kayaking and canoeing down the Uwharrie River soon after heavy storms moved through the area.

Type 1 teams are the most advanced swift-water rescue asset in the state. These teams also are comprised of 14 members (just as the Type 2 teams), but at least four of the eight rescue technicians have completed extensive helo-aquatic rescue training. Known as the North Carolina Helicopter and Aquatic Rescue Team, or NCHART, the program combines the expertise of local rescue technicians with the training, maintenance and capabilities of the N.C. National Guard Blackhawk Unit based in Salisbury.

The NCHART program became the first of its kind in the nation to implement a regimented training and response program that combines the best civilian rescuers with military aviation assets. Twenty-eight of the rescue technicians who already had swift water training were selected for the program. To qualify for the HART team, they had to pass a stringent physical fitness test and an intensive 80-hour course that taught them how to rescue injured people from the ground and place them in the aircraft.

HART teams were used extensively following hurricanes Frances and Ivan in 2004. Fast moving water and landslides cut off many roads and escape routes in the mountains trapping hundreds of people. The teams delivered an estimated 350 citizens to safety.

Shortly after Floyd, the state also began working with several larger fire departments and rescue squads to develop a regionalized Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) program. Highly trained and properly equipped, teams range from 16 to 72 people and can provide search and rescue for any type of fallen structure as well as swift water or land search capabilities. Eleven teams are strategically located in municipal areas to quickly respond to any area of the state. Squads are designed to provide almost immediate relief to victims within the first few hours of an incident.

The Process

Whether a motorist is swept away by rising floodwaters, or victims are trapped in a collapsed building, local first responders are the first to arrive on scene to provide assistance. But if the situation demands more resources than the jurisdiction has available, local emergency management directors can request help from a state-certified search and rescue team.

Since all of the different search and rescue teams are owned and operated by cities or counties, many municipalities contact each other directly to request assistance using mutual aid agreements. They also can call the state's Emergency Management 24-hour Operations Center to request help. Depending on the emergency, a swift water rescue team, HART or USAR team is immediately deployed to the scene.

Crews are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Ten of the 11 USAR task forces are also certified in land and swift water rescue. That flexibility in responding to various types of search and rescue missions is referred to as the ‘all hazards approach' by those in emergency management. The same crews that pull victims from a collapsed building may be used the following day to rescue people trapped by rising floodwaters. Such was the case recently in Wake County.

Members of USAR Task Force 8, comprised of crews from Raleigh, Cary, Durham and Chapel Hill, searched for survivors when an explosion collapsed part of the Garner ConAgra plant June 9. One week later, swift water rescue teams from the same task force rescued dozens of stranded residents from a Raleigh apartment building and day care center following heavy rains.

Setting the Standard

North Carolina has developed a national reputation in the past decade for its search and rescue program. When seven storms pummeled the state during 2004, the swift water rescue teams saved more than 1,110 lives. Those efforts earned them the international Higgins & Langley Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in the field of swift water-flood rescue. “The credit for our success as a state really belongs to these local response organizations,” said Todd Brown, state coordinator for emergency services. “They agreed to undergo additional training and invest the manpower in order to meet these higher standards.”

In the past eight years, the state has received nearly $9 million to buy equipment and train first responders on search and rescue missions. Federal homeland security grants totaling more than $7 million provided most of the funds which were distributed directly to the local fire departments and rescue squads. An additional $1.8 million in state funds was used to develop the USAR program in 2000, and also has provided much needed training and equipment for the swift water rescue teams.

Today 37 local agencies have swift water rescue teams that meet stringent national standards. Eleven squads have been certified to provide urban search and rescue.

The training developed and equipment accrued in the past decade ensures that first responder organizations will operate effectively and efficiently under even the worst conditions. All of the teams have been trained using national standards and best practices, making them a valuable resource to other states, as well, during times of crisis.

The investment has paid off.

“In the past decade, these search and rescue teams have saved thousands of lives, not only in our state, but in a dozen others who have requested our help,” said Hoell. “North Carolina is better prepared today because those local response agencies and the state invested the time and funds needed to build a nationally recognized state-coordinated program.” ###