A tornado blows through a community of only a few thousand in Southern Illinois. It destroys houses and other buildings, injuring and trapping residents, and causes a variety of damage and devastation to a community. Compare a small-scale disaster like this to one of massive destruction and national attention like Hurricane Katrina. When it comes to deploying federal resources, the latter obviously will be the greater priority. But where does that leave those people in Southern Illinois? That's where state urban search-and-rescue teams come in.

"It takes a while to activate a Federal Emergency Management Agency team, and FEMA wouldn't respond to every incident," says Michael DellaRocco, assistant chief of the Schenectady (N.Y.) Fire Department and a member of the development committee for New York's USAR program, which began in 1996. "Although it may be a disaster on the local level, it might not be on the national level. There has to be some kind of training for first responders in fire departments or nationwide, and different levels of response."

Events like the Oklahoma City bombing, the first World Trade Center attack, and Sept. 11, 2001, brought home the need to respond quickly an effectively to local disasters. Many states have organized urban search-and-rescue teams, some brand-new, others existing for years. New Jersey, for example, had USAR teams at Ground Zero in New York within hours of the terrorist attacks.

About five years ago, USAR teams from 12 states attended a FEMA-equivalent task force class, and attendees saw the benefits in sharing each other's knowledge, concerns and resources to promote and support state USAR teams nationwide. In August 2006, the State Urban Search & Rescue Alliance was created, representing 35 states, including Puerto Rico. SUSAR has working groups to develop standardized typing and credentialing agreements and training recommendations, as well as discipline-specific groups and administrative working groups. This non-profit organization helps managers work with their state emergency management representatives and with FEMA program leaders.

"The biggest thing [SUSAR is] trying to do is get every team credentialed to the same level [through FEMA and the National Incident Management System]," says Chuck Wehrli, a task force leader for the Illinois Task Force Team-1 and FEMA safety officer for Missouri TF-1. "For USAR teams, there are Types 1, 2 and 3. Type 1 is a full, 70-person team consisting of task force leaders, safety officers, structural engineers, doctors, medical team managers, canine search managers, rescue engineers and more. It's not a requirement to be Type 1, but we'd like every state to have at least that. If you have a couple of Type-3, 35-member teams in your state, could you bring them together as a Type 1?"

SUSAR also has a networking resource online at www.susar.org, where members can communicate with each other directly. Members can post a problem or request information and receive responses and advice from a number of other USAR managers. It also provides a great resource in getting new teams started.

"If a state wants to form a team, they can go to the Yahoo group and ask people from all over the United States for mobilization manuals or administrative manuals that people are willing to share," says Wehrli. "You cut and paste, change the name of the state and you have a basic manual for a state to start work."

But that is just the basics. Forming an USAR team provides benefits of localized response to the surrounding area, but also requires an investment of time and money.

Funding options will vary from state to state. The Illinois teams, for example, are members of the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, and receive funding from the organization. New York's original two USAR teams were funded by a pilot program through the New York State Insurance Fund; although no longer a pilot program, New York teams still receive state funding.

Wehrli recommends trying to get congressional representatives involved. "Try to get them out to training to see what the teams can do," he says. "There's a lot of grant money out there, and politically, if you have the right people in power behind you, it really helps out."