Kokomo, Ind., is a typical, medium-sized city in the Midwest, situated about halfway between South Bend and Indianapolis and surrounded by fertile farmland. It is a place where the whole world — or so it seems — is as flat as a pool table, and local streams, like Little Wildcat Creek, are idyllically placid. So Kokomo might seem like an unusual place for swiftwater-rescue training.

But when big storms stall and the area is hit with 10 to 15 inches of rain in a short period of time, the rain gets backed up and there's nowhere for it to go. “The Midwest is so different [from] Colorado or Texas, with dry stream beds where you get flash flooding. When there's a whole lot of rainfall on flat farmland and concrete, it acts differently,” says Doug Thomas, division chief for training and special operations with the Kokomo Fire Department. “It drops into the streams and rivers everywhere, all at once, and the water comes up in a fraction of the time you would expect.”

The last big flood in Kokomo was July 4, 2003, when 16 inches of rain fell and areas in town that had never been affected were underneath 4 feet of floodwater.

“At that time, we had an old aluminum fishing boat that was our ‘rescue boat,’ in case a kid fell through the ice in winter,” Thomas says. “And everyone kept saying we don't get floods here. This is Indiana, corn and soybean land.” As a result of the 2003 deluge, Thomas no longer has to argue about floods. “We've now got a full-blown swiftwater-rescue program.”

Little did Thomas imagine that the recent round of storms in the Midwest would put to the test every lesson he teaches about disaster preparedness and plunge him, unceremoniously, into the uncomfortable world of a flood victim. Thomas and his wife had purchased a 90-year-old house in Columbus, Ind., 100 miles south of Kokomo, when a series of storms caused the worst flooding regionally since 1993, killing at least 24 people, damaging or destroying thousands of homes and decimating tens of thousands of acres of prime farmland.

“There isn't a book out there that I've used for teaching that had the answers that I needed when I was standing in the middle of that flood in our new house,” Thomas says. “When you're watching 500-gallon propane tanks floating down the street in front of you, you're thinking, ‘I didn't read that chapter.’ Then you hear on the radio that it's even worse in the two states next to yours, and you start wondering, ‘Who's going to come help us? Are they going to Iowa first?’

“I've been a fire captain and battalion chief whose job it is to stand there and be in control and give orders, and things start getting better in 10 minutes or so,” the 29-year veteran of the fire service says. “Well, when you're not in uniform, and you're not surrounded by your swiftwater-rescue team, and you just don't think that things are going to get better tomorrow, or even the next day, it's hard to handle. You find yourself saying, like we knock everybody else for saying, ‘will the federal people be getting here soon? Now what?’”

Thomas, who teaches emergency responders about the National Incident Management System and also is a swiftwater-rescue instructor, was out of town when the flood hit. His wife and dog were evacuated from the house in the middle of the night, and he returned to the familiar toxic mess in his neighborhood with no electricity or other services. “We train small swiftwater-rescue units in various towns and fire districts to be ready to swoop in and pluck a hapless motorist off the roof of his truck in a swollen creek, or go get a group of boy scouts off of an island in the middle of a fast moving river where their overturned canoe stranded them,” Thomas says. “But when a large-scale flooding disaster descends on a seven- or eight-state region, who comes to the rescue when the rescuers are victims, too?

“Everybody thinks that 9/11 changed this country. 9/11 was a terrible event, but in 2005, Hurricane Katrina became the catalyst that redefined emergency response in the United States. Katrina totally changed how we react to natural disasters and redefined what we need to do to prepare for them,” Thomas says. “When you have the big orange-and-white Coast Guard helicopters performing water rescues in Indiana, of all places, you realize that major floods can happen anywhere.”

Katrina's many lessons have resonated in agencies at every level of government, including the federal level. “There has been a huge evolution of events since 2005,” says Rick Button, chief of the Coordination Division, U.S. Coast Guard, Office of Search and Rescue. “The National Response Framework … was re-written as of January 2008.”

For search and rescue, Button says that Emergency Support Function #9 has been expanded beyond its original urban search and rescue, collapsed structure focus. ESF9 now is divided into four sections: US&R, waterborne, inland and aeronautical SAR. Button serves on the National SAR Committee, which is comprised of seven federal agencies, including The departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Commerce, Interior and Transportation; the Federal Communications Commission; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“This committee has been working over the past year to develop guidelines for coordinating the federal response for search and rescue operations during catastrophic incidents,” Button says. “The Catastrophic Incident Search and Rescue Addendum, or CIS, is available in draft form on the NSARC Web site, www.uscg.mil/vtm. I would urge all fire chiefs, chief officers and emergency managers to not only become familiar with the National Response Framework, but the Catastrophic Incident Search and Rescue Addendum as well, in order to understand what to expect when the federal government is asked to assist in a response operation that overwhelms state and local authorities. I can't stress this enough.”

Natural disasters fall into two basic categories: notice and no-notice events. “Notice events include hurricanes and large storms that we can see coming,” Button says. “No-notice events are like earthquakes and events that happen suddenly, without warning. For notice events, federal SAR resources, including water rescue assets, can be pre-positioned, but this needs to be coordinated through the states.”

For the 28 national Urban Search and Rescue Task Force Teams that are sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in addition to defensive water-rescue training and personal protective equipment, designated personnel now have been cleared to perform surface water-rescue operations.

“There are three positions out of 19 positions on the US&R Task Force teams that now require water-rescue capability, including the rescue specialists, rescue squad officers and the rescue team managers,” says FEMA spokesperson Mary Margaret Walker. “There are two additional positions where the training is recommended, but not required, and they are the safety officers and the technical search specialists.” This means that at least 26 task force members out of 70 now will have operations-level water-rescue capability.

Walker is careful to distinguish between surface water-based search-and-rescue operations, on shore or by boat, which the FEMA US&R teams are permitted to manage, verses highly technical swiftwater-rescue operations, which is in its own specialized category under NIMS. “Our focus is on flat water floods,” Walker says. “The reason is that it generally takes 12 to 24 hours before our US&R teams can arrive on scene, so any swiftwater needs will have been addressed way before we get there.”

“Water rescue is part of the all-hazards approach,” Button says. “If a state requests federal assistance during a catastrophic incident or disaster and ESF9 is implemented, all sorts of assets can be brought to the table to work together under incident command to conduct water search-and-rescue operations. For aeronautical and water-rescue resources, depending on the incident, the Coast Guard, National Park Service, and FEMA US&R teams can work together with state and local resources to mitigate the disaster.”

It is well recognized that disasters are managed well — or not so well — from the bottom up, starting with a local community's immediate response. “The fire service as a whole is slowly, but surely, seeing that swiftwater and flood rescue is just another discipline that we are going to be tasked to do,” says Asst. Chief Les Crews of the Monarch Fire Protection District in West St. Louis County, Mo. “No disrespect to other emergency response communities, but when someone dials 911, they've usually got one of two issues, law enforcement, or ‘something else.’ Today, the fire service is expected to handle the biggest part of the ‘something else’ calls, including swiftwater and flood rescue.”

Monarch Fire has developed an admirable swiftwater- and flood-rescue capability and Crews is coordinating with other agencies to increase and organize capabilities statewide. “Because flooding events can overwhelm local jurisdictions and impact large areas simultaneously,” he says, “in addition to building local response capability, and coordinating assets countywide and with our immediate neighbors, we also need a systematic approach to have strategic placement of swiftwater-rescue teams statewide.”

Missouri State Fire Marshal Randy Cole agrees. “We've made great strides over the past six months to develop a network of swiftwater-rescue resources throughout the state, working with the Missouri State Water Patrol, the National Guard and a network of fire agencies.”

Missouri is divided into nine response regions, with mutual aid coordinators contacting the fire marshal's office to activate the state mutual aid system. “We're looking at this same concept for swiftwater-rescue assets,” Cole says. “We want to make sure that swiftwater-rescue team training is consistent, that we have a coordinated response and that everybody knows everybody else and understands what their mission is.”

“NIMS is one of the keys to making a multi-agency program successful, including unified command,” Crews says. “Both the state water patrol and National Guard are receptive and willing to embrace this program.”

When Missouri launches its statewide swiftwater-rescue program, it will join a small, but growing, number of states that recognize that when lives are on the line in dangerous floodwaters, time is of the essence and you can't be thumbing through the phone book to find a boat rental company. Rescue operations must be decisive, well coordinated and carefully orchestrated to ensure the highest degree of safety for rescue personnel and victims alike.

“We've taken model programs from California, North Carolina, Texas and Baltimore County and we've extracted the pieces that we think will be the best fit for our state to get our program going,” Crews says. “Agencies want this training in order to enhance their capability so that they can respond better. They want the right equipment to help with these missions, including everything from boats to personal protective gear to helicopter operations. And the coordination of resources that can respond to these missions rolls right into team typing and credentialing.”

For Col. Rad Talburt, commissioner of the Missouri State Water Patrol, the new statewide swiftwater-rescue program concept is well-timed and is being well received by the 97 officers who patrol waterways throughout the state. “We have a dive team that serves as a Homeland Security dive team for the mid-states region,” he says. “They can go anywhere and they're swiftwater-rescue trained. But we're now seeing that we need to also provide this training to our regular patrol officers.

“Three of our officers had their boat capsize when they were trying to rescue people in swiftwater and they ended up in the water themselves,” Talburt says of the recent floods. “One of the biggest benefits of swiftwater-rescue training is that it teaches our officers how to survive if they do end up in the water. Self rescue is an important element.”

For major flooding disasters, where the safety of rescue personnel extends beyond self rescue, “we bring law enforcement into the mix, which is also a benefit. And our personnel operate boats everyday,” Talburt says. “A statewide swiftwater-rescue program is going to be a big benefit for us. We can all work together to get the job done.”

“Water patrol and the National Guard will be the two biggest players from the state,” Cole says. “Their integration into the operations of fire service emergency responders is a perfect blend. We've had a couple of dress rehearsals for our concept of operations, including the pre-deployment of swiftwater-rescue resources during the recent flooding. We've tested the concept of operations and it works. Other states have tested and implemented this concept of operations, as well. Every state needs this.”

With vast, regional flooding events in mind, “We want to get our network of resources into place first,” Cole says. “But as we do this, we definitely want to also look at what the surrounding states might have to offer, in terms of swiftwater, US&R and other assets, and start incorporating them into a response avenue in case we ever do have a really overwhelming catastrophe, like another major flood or a big earthquake on the New Madrid fault.”

Angela Copple is the Emergency Management Assistance Compact Coordinator for the National Emergency Management Agency, to which all 50 member states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Guam belong. “Having a membership like this offers a vast supply of resources for state-to-state mutual aid,” she says. “If your resources are exhausted, or the event is of such a scope that you need to deploy additional resources, the states can ask for resources under EMAC.”

Self-deployment in times of emergency is a major problem that EMAC seeks to alleviate. “There were a lot of self-deployments during Katrina, which became part of the problem, overwhelming the system,” Copple says. “People who went on their own still needed food and shelter and in some cases needed to be rescued themselves. This is one of the main reasons we push EMAC. It works under the incident command system of local and state agencies, matching communications and interoperability.”

Copple notes that the International Association of Fire Chiefs is part of the EMAC Advisory Group, which works with response and recovery groups to study big events, evaluate the overall response and offer suggestions for making improvements.

“Pre-event preparation is essential for being able to deploy your assets quickly and efficiently through EMAC,” Copple says, “and you need to know how to get reimbursed if you do get deployed. We can provide fire departments with EMAC deployment brochures that outline how to use the system efficiently.”

For more in-depth training, a new multi-disciplinary train-the-trainer course that focuses on EMAC is being offered at the Emergency Management Institute in Emmitsburg, Md. “This course will be beneficial to fire-rescue, law enforcement and other response and recovery agencies that will be deploying under EMAC,” Copple says. “It's not really designed for emergency managers, who already know about EMAC.”

With more information and education, Copple hopes that states and local emergency responders will be able to leverage additional resources capably and quickly when there are large disasters, and participate in deployments when they have special assets to offer.

Fire chiefs and state emergency managers need look no further than North Carolina for a model, statewide swiftwater- and flood-rescue program that integrates ground, boat-based and air-rescue assets statewide.

Todd Brown, state SAR coordinator for the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, says that as local fire-rescue agencies developed their own swiftwater- and flood-rescue assets, the state joined with them to build a comprehensive system to coordinate and deploy these assets statewide. NCEM also established advanced capability to pre-position resources when large hurricanes threaten the state. “Not every jurisdiction can afford to establish a team with the skills and equipment necessary to work in the extremely hazardous swiftwater environment,” Brown says. “So we've taken a regionalized approach, especially with our helicopter-based swiftwater-rescue teams.”

“The emphasis is on partnerships with all agencies throughout the state working together,” says Michael Sprayberry, NCEM deputy director. “People are willing to go the extra mile to make all this happen.”

When big storms threaten the state, Brown can draw from a carefully identified cadre of swiftwater-rescue, US&R, flood, hazmat and air-rescue resources, moving them around the state like chess pieces. “The planning cells at the regional coordination centers determine what we'll need to pre-deploy and when,” he says.

Brown is proud of the state's innovative fire-military swiftwater/air-rescue partnership. “We have eight UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, with two more coming in, and about 30 civilian rescuers who have advanced training in swiftwater rescue,” he says. “We went through an indoctrination and candidate assessment process and picked the best of the best from the local fire-rescue agencies. We train quarterly for about 12 hours. There are nine local agencies that participate with swiftwater rescue technicians, along with the National Guard air units.”

Sprayberry is adamant about the need for all states to develop similar programs for managing large flood and hurricane emergencies. “We need to illustrate best practices at conferences and meetings for these types of activities so that one state that is doing well in an area like swiftwater rescue can be a model for other states and they don't have to agonize over how develop a program like this. If it has already been done, let's share it with others,” he says. “We're in the 21st century after all. There is no excuse for a state not to have a good, solid search-and-rescue program that can be ready when needed. We're not being cocky or arrogant. We work hard at this. And we realize that no matter how hard we plan, train and exercise, Mother Nature can play cruel tricks and sometimes there's no way to foresee every contingency. But the best thing is to plan, train, exercise, continue building your capability and try to be as prepared as you possibly can.”

Two days after the flood that devastated Columbus, Ind., Thomas welcomed food and water from volunteer church organizations that knocked on his front door. It was the first relief available. Filtering this through the swiftwater and flood rescue response model, “we should all be at the point where we're organizing regional response capability, with all of the agencies in one county agreeing on co-training and response plans,” he says. “Then we need to talk to the contiguous counties so that we have something a little bigger that can get started on its own before the second or third day response from state and federal governments. For crying out loud, if the church ladies can do this, I don't see why we can't do it, too.”

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Nancy J. Rigg is an author, documentary filmmaker, public safety consultant, and advocate of swiftwater rescue. She has won the George B. Walter Service to Society Award from Lawrence University, Appleton, Wis. She also is the executive director of the Higgins & Langly Memorial and Education Fund, a nonprofit organization that sponsors drowning-prevention and water-rescue education programs.

Force of Water

Current Speed in mph	Legs Force in pounds	Body Force in pounds	Open canoe Force in pounds
3	17	34	168
5	47	93	467
6	67	134	672
9	151	302	1,511
10	187	373	1,866
12	269	537	2,687
15	421	839	4,199
Source: Keith Gillespie, Albany (Ore.) Fire Department Water-Rescue Team