The number of regional urban search-and-rescue teams is increasing across the nation, according to the Florida Association of Urban Search and Rescue's President Kathy Miller, deputy chief of the Orlando (Fla.) Fire Department. Fire Chief Editor Janet Wilmoth spoke with Miller about new developments in search and rescue from both regional and national perspectives.

Miller joined the fire service in 1978 as a volunteer. She became full-time shortly after and joined the Orlando Fire Department in 1982. She worked her way up the ranks to deputy chief and also is currently a certified paramedic. Miller also serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Search and Rescue.

How did you first get involved with search and rescue?

In the late '90s, one of our firefighters drowned in Tampa Bay and firefighters from Orlando Fire Department went over to look for him. There were a number of K9s that came over from Sarasota to assist in the search, but Central Florida didn't seem to have a coordinated search-and-rescue response other than a fire department response to a building fire. So I started the group called Search and Rescue Central Florida to address the issue of search-and-rescue needs in Central Florida.

Between the firefighter drowning and the formation of the team, we also had a series of tornadoes come through three or four counties in Central Florida in 1998 that resulted in 49 fatalities. We also had several incidents where people were trapped to varying degree in rubble, and again there was no coordinated search-and-rescue response. The state fire marshal at the time and our bureau chief, who was also the state coordinator for Emergency Support Function 9, which is search and rescue, also noticed this need.

Apparently, there was an uncoordinated response after Hurricane Andrew and so being charged with the ESF 9, Ray Napoli from the state fire marshal's office invited all of the known search-and-rescue teams to attend a summit in the summer of 1999 to look at creating a typing policy that would identify different types of search and rescue available and what the training requirements should be to respond to incidents.

Out of that summit, the Florida Association of Search and Rescue was formed, and I was elected chair. Our first task was to develop that typing document, a policy that would identify search-and-rescue responders from wilderness to urban, and what specific training, equipment and certification they would need in order to bond effectively. From there it was a springboard to the National Association of Search and Rescue, where I became a board member.

Was NASAR already in existence?

The National Association for Search And Rescue was formed just over 20 years ago. The NASAR Council actually became NASAR, however, now there is a NSARC — National Search and Rescue Council — with federal organizations on that council. For many years NASAR did not have a seat at that group, and we now have a seat.

Your specialty at NASAR is emerging issues. What are some of them?

From NASAR's perspective, one of the things we're seeing is the authorization of emergency-use personal beacons for hikers and hunters. These emergency location beacons can reduce the amount of area that needs to be searched for a person who is lost. If a person has a locator beacon and it's accurate to three square miles, the satellite can pinpoint the person to a 3-square-mile area, and that's a lot easier to search than a 100-square-mile area.

What are the differences between the regional versus the federal search-and-rescue teams?

Years ago after the California earthquakes, the federal government began looking at the ability to respond to catastrophic events where people were buried in rubble, and the FEMA search-and-rescue concept was born. FEMA came to NASAR to create the training standards and equipment lists and all the things that have to do with NASAR. Under the federal government NASAR created what we see now listed at the FEMA Web site as the training criteria on all aspects of urban search and rescue, as well as the equipment lists. When the contract ran out, the USAR groups themselves took over the maintenance of those documents.

The FEMA search-and-rescue groups — there are 28 of them — are federal assets and reside in states and communities. States and local jurisdictions do not have the authority to activate the task forces; they must be activated by going through FEMA. As part of our efforts in Florida, as well as some other states, we are developing the concept of regional urban search and rescue.

Basically, we saw the incident in Oklahoma City and a number of other bombings, building collapses, and people being trapped in Beirut and Nairobi. When the Florida Search and Rescue was developing its typing document in late 2000, one of the things we looked at was if we had an incident or several incidents that occurred in the country at the same time and the two FEMA task forces we have in Florida were deployed, and then we had an event in Florida, who would respond?

So we took the idea from California and created regionalized urban search and rescue. One of the things they found in California's Northridge Earthquake was that it was difficult to move around the community because roads were out, bridges were out, etc., and the wait time for a federal asset to respond into the area was 24 to 48 hours. They needed some means to extricate people from rubble earlier than that, so they regionalized their USAR capabilities. Fire departments from different parts of the state had different capabilities as far as search and rescue, so we took that idea and ran with it here in Florida.

What are the levels of response?

Ultimately, we identified four different levels of response for search and rescue. The first level is the full-fledged FEMA task force, and the second is the Hurricane or the Short Team. The full-fledged FEMA team has 62 members on it, and we followed the FEMA requirements exactly for staffing and equipment for our Type I and Type II. [Visit www.fasar.org for typing documents.]

We believed that if we could deploy to the area within four to six hours and it was a situation that required a full FEMA response, then our folks would have the same training, the same equipment, the same everything that the federalized FEMA teams had, then we could meld right in with their teams. Instead of having two FEMA teams respond, we could have one federalized team with the backup of a regional team.

We identified a Type III team that is more of a technical-rescue team and is based on the type of construction of the building collapsed. The capability of the team is based on what they have to move to extricate the patients. A Type IV team would respond to a wood-construction, single-family resident or two-story building. It is a company response or a fire station in a community that have specific training to assess a collapse and allow them to begin extrication of people that are trapped around the periphery of the collapse.The Type I team would be bridge collapse and high-rise buildings, like the World Trade Center….

How widespread are teams that aren't funded by FEMA?

Other states have begun looking at this same type of response. After Sept. 11, Gov. Jeb Bush asked what we would have to respond with if both of our federal task forces had been put on standby and there had been an attack in Florida, We had one team, the Tampa Bay — Hillsborough team, vying for a FEMA position, but it lost out to Ohio. They had a lot of capability, but not a standing at the federal level, and they were the only ones capable of responding. That left most of Florida without coverage.

Post — Sept. 11, we started receiving funding to implement the teams we had defined within the typing policy. Other states are concerned as well, because if they had a USAR team in the state it could not be deployed without federalization. Consequently, several states are working on teams that could be tasked by the state or the regional level without going through the federal government. Those states include Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Connecticut, Georgia, Ohio and Illinois. California already had existing teams.

Most of the funding for these teams is from the state level. FEMA has said they are not going to fund any more USAR teams and, for now, are not going to provide any more federal dollars for the development of USAR teams. It's going to fall on the states to fund their state USAR teams.

That's not to say there aren't some federal dollars to support equipment — FIRE Grant or ODP, some money from DOJ — because you're building in preparedness as well as the ability to respond regionally.

Does every state have some sort of rescue team?

Some states, the search and rescue is left to the local jurisdiction. Volunteer teams pop up here and there, but there may not be coordination between the teams in a state or region. Other states have a search-and-rescue coordinator, such as Alaska, North Carolina and Colorado, and have very well-coordinated search-and-rescue organizations. The state is the go-to place and the coordinator is the go-to person for teams that wish to be deployed for search-and-rescue missions in state parks or whatever.

What about certification for search-and-rescue technicians?

In Florida, we adopted the federal FEMA rescue specialist, medical specialist, all of the team positions on a FEMA team and require the same training and the same requirements.

K9s have taken on a prominent role in search and rescue. Why is this sector increasing in spite of all the technology available?

… Canines can more rapidly identify the approximate location of a victim buried in rubble than can a human. Typically the canine will identify a general area in which it's catching the scent of someone entrapped. The search specialist will then come over with electronic listening equipment and fiber-optic viewing equipment and look in the general area that the dog has pointed out.

The dog plays a significant role. For humans to do this type of search, you'd have to grid off the rubble pile, which we do with canines anyway, and the teams would have to move their equipment through the grids poking in every hole looking for the signs of a human, whereas the canines can move very rapidly over a pile and alert on scent arising from the shafts that are created by the rubble. The problem is that the place where the scent is exiting the rubble pile may not be exactly where the person is located because you're following air currents, but canines narrow down the area and save time. They can locate victims in hours rather than the days it would if trying to do it with only humans.

How many canines do you have in your USAR team?

We have one canine that is certified. We are using the FEMA standards, and because our program is relatively new, we have developed a K9 Type I and K9 Type II, and we've adopted in Florida a K9 Type III, which is one-half of the requirements of Type I. To see those requirements, go to www.fema.gov/usr.

NASAR is developing a collapse canine standard that is different from Florida's because we're already receiving money to develop these teams to get these teams deployable, so we adopted the other standard.

How would a fire department go about starting a search-and-rescue team?

We would recommend that they get the training through NASAR and get certified as a Search and Rescue Technician II, which is basically the intermediate-level technician. In that SAR Tech II, you have to pass a written test and pass five field stations, one of which is a land navigation course that teaches you how to use a compass and how to get from point A to point B and know what the distance is that you traveled. Technician II would be the lowest level of deployable certification.

One of the things that happened during Hurricane Andrew is that there was so much devastation that all of the landmarks that people used for direction and referencing were gone. People who had lived in the area all of their life had trouble getting around, so it became necessary for there to be some other means of knowing where you were. So using compassing and orienteering would have come in very handy.

What can volunteer departments do?

For rural fire departments that are on the edge of recreational areas, state parks or national parks, it's important that both law enforcement and fire personnel, who would end up responding to a lost person, be trained in both search management and in search-and-rescue techniques.

In Jacksonville, Fla., their regional USAR are becoming dual-certified in missing persons searches. It's difficult for volunteer search-and-rescue teams, who oftentimes are laypeople — they're not law enforcement and not fire — to go into a situation where you have police and fire on the scene and hold any credibility with the public safety professionals.

It's not that the search-and-rescue folks aren't professional, it's just that oftentimes there's not a good working relationship between the two or three entities. That's not true everywhere. In Sarasota, Fla., under the leadership of Pat Abrams, her team has a wonderful relationship with her county, but it takes time to develop this relationship.

One of the ways those relations can be forged is by training together. If the volunteer search-and-rescue responders are training and working with law enforcement and fire department personnel, a natural bridge is maintained between search-and-rescue responders. It really, really makes a huge difference in the outcome of the search.

Search techniques vary on who is lost, right?

There are specific techniques that need to be applied to the type of person who is lost. For instance, an Alzheimer's patient is not going to respond to being lost the same way a hunter or a small child would. If you're not familiar with the techniques that need to be applied in the search management phase of that particular operation, you could be in a recovery situation rather than a rescue situation.…

There is a science to search management. We're working with the Coast Guard and some other agencies on a sweep whip, which is about the spacing between your searchers: What is the ideal spacing so that you don't have too much overlap, but you don't miss anything either? Experiments are going on all the time to improve the find rate.

At the end of the day, our concern is for our citizens, police, fire and first responders. The more training we can get collectively, the better it is for our citizens who are lost. I would encourage fire departments and law enforcements to work with their local search-and-rescue responders to help them get better training. The outcome will be more positive for the victim or the person who is lost.

NASAR is here to assist any agency that is interested developing a program or getting in contact with search-and-rescue teams if they don't know any in their areas.

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San Bernardino (Calif.) County firefighters search near Waterman Canyon Road last December for victims of a mudslide that killed at least 12 people. It's important that fire personnel be trained in both search management and in search-and-rescue techniques.