Water Rescue's Fed Fix

I wanted to take few minutes commenting on the fine article on water rescue and the supplemental about changing the national response model.

I am a 27-year veteran of the fire service in a medium-sized, professional fire department just outside Seattle. I have spent most of my adult life in the water-rescue field in some form or another: as a lifeguard, military scuba diver, and a water safety and survival instructor. And I am certified as an instructor in both swiftwater and dive-rescue operations. I have been the officer in charge of special operations for some time, which includes technical rescue, hazmat and WMD. I currently serve as a rescue squad officer for WATF-1 and was deployed to Katrina in 2005. I mention this experience only to validate my comments and not as a biographical rant.

The article (“Water Rescue,” September 2007. available at www.firechief.com) written by the heroic, passionate and articulate Nancy Rigg is hopefully a wake-up call to arms for all of us who realize water is the most destructive element in most of our natural disasters. In fact, more people die from water related incidents in the U.S. and around the world than from all the other disasters combined. How is it then that we have not come up with a solution for responding to large-scale flood/swiftwater events at the federal level? It seems so simple to us at the operational level. California, Texas and other states have married their FEMA USAR task forces to a robust, well-trained and very mobile water rescue component that has rescued hundreds if not thousands of people in flood events.

Why haven't the feds recognized, even after post-Katrina congressional hearings, that offensive water-rescue capability is what saved lives? The former head of ESF-9 testified that it would be too much of a burden on the task forces and that FEMA would leave it to the Coast Guard and local civilian and uniformed agencies to take care of the most complex and dangerous of rescue situations.

Most of the task forces are made up primarily of firefighters. Many of those firefighters (80% of our task force) are already qualified at the technician level in swiftwater and are chomping at the bit to be able to more fully assist in disaster rescue.

People are dying needlessly because of bureaucratic red tape that permeates anything to do with federal assets. During our Katrina deployment, we loaded and unloaded boats and water rescue equipment at least two times despite knowing that is exactly what they needed in NOLA. Fire departments whose personnel were assigned and deploying with the task force generously offered expensive equipment without any promise of replacement should it become unserviceable. They wanted to help and knew New Orleans especially needed water-rescue professionals and equipment to rescue the stranded and dying in the city. The feds not only refused the help, but threatened sanctions if we brought it with us.

I recently read an opinion piece by Dr. [Robert] McCreight, a professor at George Washington University, who called for a “national disaster response force” capable of an all-hazards approach. We already have the structure in place if only responsible bureaucrats would recognize it. It is time for influential people in emergency response and management to speak up and lobby FEMA to expand the role of its extremely capable USAR system.

The [military] helicopter assets did a heroic job during Katrina and Rita, but most professional rescuers know helicopters are the most dangerous way to rescue people in the type of flooding that occurs routinely here in the U.S. Boat-based rescuers with advanced training can get to large numbers of people with stable platforms that don't have the victims and rescuers dangling on the end of a cable subject to wind, ground effect, power lines and turbine failure. Helicopters certainly have their place and should definitely be part of an integrated response. USAR task forces bring to the table all the elements of successful urban, and building collapse rescue except one — the ability to deploy in flood inundated environments that make up the majority of disasters in this country. FEMA can fix this quickly and with only a fraction of the money that was wasted in the aftermath of Katrina. It needs to be done now.
— Tom Marino, Squad Leader
WATF-1 (FEMA USAR)
OIC Special Operations Division
Valley Regional (Wash.) Fire
Authority

Let Charleston Heal

I have been reading your articles now for the past few months…. Charleston was an unnecessary tragedy. Mistakes were made that I would hope all fire service advocates would like to help change. However, I must point out that I, for one, am getting tired of all the articles I see (not just your magazine) discrediting that department. They made mistakes that they are paying for, but they are also hurting. I would like nothing better than to see them clean up the mistakes and clean out their archaic way of thinking. But I can no longer condone the continuous bashing of that department for what appears to me to be for no good purpose. What has needed to be said has been said. What has been done is done. Whether that chief needs to resign or not is none of my concern. That is for the city officials to decide. But I do believe the only way that department can heal is to forgive each other and move on. My hope is that all fire service managers in every corner of our country learn enough about the decisions made that day to keep this from ever happening to any department again. I hope to God I don't ever make a critical mistake in judgment. I would like to retire knowing that not one gravestone exists because of a decision I made.

If you truly wish to help the fire service, please stop hammering them and use the resources and knowledge that I know you have and help all of us learn from Charleston's tragedy. If you will do that, we just might be able to prevent this from happening to some other department, maybe even mine.
— Chief Michael P. Van Dyke
Montezuma Rimrock (Ariz.) Fire
Department