Following retirement in 1998 after 25 years with the New Brunswick (N.J.) Fire Department, the last three as its fire director, fourth-generation firefighter Jim Riley wouldn't have been faulted if he'd decided to spend some quality time with a fishing rod or set of golf clubs. Instead, he's now a task force leader with New Jersey's state-level Task Force 1 urban search and rescue operations and chairman of the newly formed State Urban Search and Rescue Alliance.

Why state urban search and rescue operations? What about FEMA USAR teams?

Certainly the state is aware that there are FEMA teams out there. But when you cram nine million people into a very small area like here in New Jersey, we felt we needed our own USAR team in the event something occurs, but felt we needed to be ready ourselves. We'd be pleased to have the assistance that FEMA teams or other state teams might lend, but felt we needed to be ready ourselves. The New Jersey legislature agreed, and in 1999 we received $1.5 million from the state legislature to get the operation up and running. Since then, we've been funded by the state with about $1 million a year to maintain our capabilities.

So how is the operation set up within the state?

What we have here in New Jersey has been fairly recent in development. Other states may have other experiences, but for the past few years New Jersey has been receiving funding from the Urban Area Security Initiative. That has allowed the creation of nine “strike teams” in the state. These are on-duty rescue teams in the bigger cities like Newark, Jersey City and Elizabeth in the northeast part of the state. These strike teams are the first response to a USAR event.

We've trained these teams in structural collapse operations, so we know their capabilities and they know ours. If they're deployed to a minor incident, they may very well be able to handle it themselves. But if not, they would call for the state USAR team, and we would respond to whatever level necessary. Conceivably, if the incident were so large it required more than what the New Jersey team could handle, we would turn to other state teams that are part of SUSAR, or even the FEMA teams. It's a plan for seamless progression to mitigate the incident.

Who issues the orders to deploy, and what is that chain of command?

In New Jersey, we come under the Office of Emergency Management; that is who deploys us. In the event we need more teams, OEM could go to FEMA or we could get state teams through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which is a governor-to-governor call. For instance, Connecticut has a state USAR team. If something happened in New Jersey and we needed Connecticut to help us out, we would simply get them through EMAC to respond to New Jersey.

How did the SUSAR concept come about and how was the organization formed?

New Jersey wasn't a unique case. Many states were starting to form their own USAR teams. South Carolina was developing a team, Connecticut was, Illinois was, and as we talked with the task-force leaders from these different states, we all agreed there was benefit to be had from a group exchange of ideas and we'd all be better able to help our states, so we decided to get together in South Carolina in July of 2005.

Seventeen states were represented at that first meeting. We got to know each other and formed some working groups. We had the second meeting here in New Jersey, and we had 23 or 24 states represented. Then we had a meeting this past August in Charlotte, and we had 26 or 27 states represented. The concept has really taken off. The next meeting will be in February 2007, hosted by Texas Task Force 1.

Currently, we have working groups addressing a variety of components, like search, rescue, medical, hazmat, logistics, and so on; these working groups are partnering with FEMA and its working groups so that we're all on the same page.

How do the FEMA teams fit in the picture with SUSAR?

We've had [FEMA Operations Chief] Fred Endrikat and his deputy Tim Gallagher at all of our meetings. We want to make sure this is a unified approach and a real partnership. We want to avoid isolationism, mistrust and the notion of “turf.” The main goal of the alliance is to unite the USAR world so we can all work together. We're looking for what is best for the common good. That's what we're all about.

If readers are interested in learning more or becoming involved, what should they do?

They can contact me at 732-657-7001, ext. 13, or send me an e-mail message at jjrnjtf1@aol.com.