Over the past few years, Texas Task Force 1, one of FEMA's 28 National Urban Search and Rescue teams, has responded to such incidents as the catastrophic attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, the tragic breakup of the space shuttle Columbia over Texas in 2003, and the mauling of the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Ivan in 2004. But in 2005, unprecedented hurricane activity led to more deployments of TX-TF 1, both as a federal and state asset, than in any other year in its history. In one five-week period, there were five Katrina-related deployments, three Rita-related deployments, and one Ophelia-related deployment.

Comprehensive tasking

Functioning through the Texas Governor's Division of Emergency Management, TX-TF 1 is made up of more than 320 individuals from 60 different agencies throughout the state. Competencies of these individuals include water rescue, conventional search and rescue, medical response, hazardous materials and weapons of mass destruction, logistics, and planning. The task force also includes a complement of overhead command-and-control personnel.

A local fire chief or police chief can request state assistance through one of 27 different disaster district committees. Each committee is led by a Texas Department of Public Safety officer in that specific location. Once a request is received, it's then coordinated with the Texas State Operations Center in Austin to provide the necessary assistance from the state. In the event of a disaster, response liaisons are placed into the disaster district committees. This lets representatives from each committee know what resources are available to them.

Texas disaster contingency planners have long established the need for a task force with water-rescue specialists for hurricane response. With the hundreds of miles of Texas coastline along the Gulf of Mexico, the meteorological record of some of most powerful hurricane in history making landfall along that coast, and the inevitability of such occurrences again in the future, water has and always will be a great threat to the state. Indeed, the 612 flood-related fatalities recorded by the state between 1960 and 1995 are more than double any other state in the nation during the same period.

Texas thus has emphasized the capability of dealing with water-related incidents as a component of its urban search-and-rescue capability. For example, the Texas Governor's Division of Emergency Management holds an annual hurricane conference and conducts several exercises before hurricane season. Most members of TX-TF 1 are cross-trained in water rescue, and the task force has established several regional water strike teams in conjunction with local jurisdictions throughout the state.

Annual water-rescue training correlates with the task force's yearly operational-readiness exercises at the well-known Disaster City facility in College Station, Texas. Three team operational-readiness exercises are conducted for personnel to master procedures and equipment in various areas of urban search and rescue. Responders face and mitigate challenges in a three-day scenario. Live “victim” reports and high-tech systems provide data used to assess rescuers. Controllers trained in core areas of urban search and rescue and emergency response serve as eyes and ears to help coach and support the team leaders, managers and members.

Outside agencies are invited to participate to help provide a better appreciation for the give-and-take interaction necessary during an actual event. Incident management teams are used to direct the actions of the task force in situations requiring the full use of the Incident Command System and all of the related planning issues. The Texas Disaster Medical Assistance Team participated in a large-scale event last spring, which precipitated changes in medical and patient-packaging procedures.

Using the infrastructure of the Disaster City facility, the full-scale exercises range from terrorist attacks to natural disasters. This year all task force members will participate in a hurricane operational-readiness exercise to hone position-specific skills and cross-train personnel in wide-area search modalities for the early stages of a hurricane deployment.

Disaster City

Disaster City is a 52-acre training facility that has been designed to deliver the full array of skills and techniques needed by today's emergency response professionals. The mock community, created by the Texas Engineering Extension Service at Texas A&M University, features full-scale, collapsible structures designed to simulate various levels of disaster and wreckage. The training possibilities are nearly endless and can be customized for the specific needs of any group or exercise.

The facility allows personnel from all emergency disciplines to receive hands-on emergency training and experience in full-scale venues. Strategic and emergency management personnel can work hand-in-hand on the same types of exercises.

Disaster City features a myriad of training facilities and props, including an Emergency Operations Training Center that offers 14,000 square feet of computerized training simulation stations. The training center incorporates video and audio feeds to active responses at the structures in Disaster City and other training venues within the complex while providing both active and virtual simulations.

The center serves as the control point for operational-readiness exercises. All of the observer-controller and scenario injects are coordinated through the center. There's also adequate space for the Incident Management Team to set up a functional command post.

Disaster City also features chemical and freight train derailments strewn over tracks outfitted with plumbing systems that can replicate hazmat leaks. There's even a passenger train derailment project in which rail cars are planted in a realistic derailment configuration to deliver the ultimate challenge for emergency responders.

After addressing the scenarios and staged injects, responders meet to discuss their actions and outcomes. From this, an after-action report is generated to provide a list of valuable lessons learned, many of which are used during the next deployment. One example of this is a simple chart used for tracking search areas and personnel accountability that TX-TF 1 search managers developed during the first days of the Katrina response. Some of the long-term solutions are tested and qualified, such as better interoperability capabilities among all of the agencies.

Effective response to any catastrophe requires a disaster training facility that's comprehensive, safe and able to reproduce real-world training scenarios over and over again. Disaster City provides emergency responders with the skills they need to effectively respond to virtually any manmade or natural disaster.

Maximum deployment

Last September witnessed the largest deployment in the history of TX-TF 1 through three separate deployments: two missions to New Orleans and one to southeast Texas for Hurricane Rita.

The state deployed both a water task force as well as a full Type 1 USAR team to southern Louisiana before Hurricane Katrina even made landfall. The water task force deployed to New Orleans, working in conjunction with the Louisiana Fish and Wildlife Department, which was the search-and-rescue lead for Louisiana.

While incident after-action reports for hurricanes Katrina and Rita are still being finalized, certainly all aspects of the state and federal governments will have lessons to be learned. The challenge will come in communicating and implementing change. On the heels of Hurricane Katrina, Texas responding agencies worked feverishly to abide by solid existing plans for Hurricane Rita while applying the lessons of Katrina.

For search-and-rescue coordination, a unified command was established with all entities directly or indirectly involved in rescue. Senior officers representing local, state, federal, military and civilian assets together developed plans and strategy prior to the landfall of Hurricane Rita. They also served as the command function for all search-and-rescue response.

Residents heeded evacuation requests and responded accordingly — some even earlier than requested. Once the hurricane's landfall did occur — thankfully with minimal loss of life — all entities quickly and effectively moved into affected areas to assess damage, set priorities and executed plans. Combined USAR and Texas Army National Guard task forces along with elements from the Texas General Land Office, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and the U.S. Coast Guard worked in coordination to search, rescue and transport patients and evacuees as well as deliver humanitarian aid to the residents of Texas.

From Katrina to Rita, the 2005 hurricane season provided many challenges for emergency responders. The many lessons learned from these disasters will provide beneficial information for search-and-rescue teams worldwide. Under the circumstances, command, control and coordination were tested and again proved invaluable during emergency response.

These functions, combined with ongoing training, will continue into 2006 and beyond as the nation's and world's events continue to improve the way we respond to disasters.

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Jeff Saunders is a task force leader for Texas Task Force 1 and associate director of emergency response and rescue for the Texas Engineering Extension Service.

David Fiero is a task force leader for Texas Task Force 1 and chief of the Nacogdoches (Texas) Fire Department.

Jay Peacock is a task force leader for Texas Task Force 1 and deputy chief of the Fort Worth (Texas) Fire Department.