MoreMarin Buzz Home: Urban search and rescue team ready, willing and able

Loma Prieta shook the Bay Area nearly to its knees twenty years ago, this weekend.

The 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm wreaked havoc along the the East Bay Hills.

Hurricane Katrina blew away New Orleans and good portion of the Gulf Coast in August 2005.

Most of us hope to avoid major disaster, but earthquakes, fires and floods are what the Urban Search and Rescue Teams flock to.

They are the rescuers risking their own safety to extract victims from mounds of rubble after a building collapse.

And Marin is leading the way.

The Marin Urban Search and Rescue Team or USAR, is made up of nearly fifty members from about twenty local organization. They are individuals specializing in saving lives under the most difficult circumstances-- rescues in water; near hazardous materials; within massive structure collapse and in very confined spaces.

Team members consist of firefighters, structural engineers, emergency workers, medical personnel and even canines.

Training is an integral part of being on a USAR Team, and Marin is no exception.

In fact, Marin is equipped with such good training facilities at Novato Fire District's Station 2, that they host training sessions for other California USAR teams. It is, in fact, one of the few Certified Rescue Systems Training sites in Northern California for USAR team members.

Last week, we got a chance to see a training session, in preparation for Saturday's 20th Anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake.

Ed Mestre, who teaches the class, lists some of this week's activities which specifically address earthquake rescues.

"It's a 40-hour class called Rescue Systems 2 which is advanced rescue practices. On Monday they did power tools...on Tuesday they did high angle rope work off the training tower with ropes and victim evacuations," Mestre notes "Today they are lifting and moving heavy objects, tomorrow they will do building collapse shoring and stabilization of buildings and on Friday they will be doing concrete breaching, steel-cutting and a practical exercise."

California, is of course, ground zero for earthquakes so this type of training is essential.

But search and rescue training isn't limited to quake disasters.

"This is one of the advanced [quake] classes, but you get taught on flood awareness, mudslides, hurricanes, tsunamis," continues Mestre, "You can show people the tools you have available that you can use for a whole variety of things but certainly earthquake preparedness is our biggie here in the Bay Area."

The reason other rescue squads--including a few from Humboldt who drove six+ hours to be at this week's session-- come here is the on-site three-story training tower (pictured at left) used in firefighting drills, and the debris field. The field is used to simulate collapsed buildings and is filled with large chunks of concrete, tons of wooden pallets, large wood pieces, steel pipes and even larger cement pipes.

The set-up is pretty impressive.

Novato Fire District's Battalion Chief Gerald McCarthy talks a bit about the Novato station and it's obvious he's proud of what they have to offer. The Novato Fire District comprises about 73 square miles.

"We have five fire stations, we have five fire engines, a ladder truck, three ambulances. We run just under 6,000 calls a year."

McCarthy then adds a few words about the history of the debris field, which is where we happen to be standing right now.

The trainees are getting prepped for their first task; moving a large cement slab weighing 7,500 pounds, to another location three feet above the ground using only typically available tools.

Using a combination of steel pipes, ropes and wood, the guys jimmy the slab slowly, working it off the other slab. It's painstaking work, but crucial to master for quake scenarios.

Meanwhile, Novato firefighter Mike Taul is busy on the other side of the field with his partner--a black lab named Jesse. Jesse is a certified search and rescue canine, one of only about 200 in the entire country.

Jesse, who is close to retirement, joined Taul after working with another handler. The two respond anywhere--locally, regionally or nationally. In fact, Jesse was used in 9/11 and "did a great job there" according to Taul.

"His job is specifically to find the people that are out of eyeshot, out of earshot, that are unconscious and buried within ten, twelve or fifteen feet down."

Taul points to the debris-strewn field.

"If you can imagine this whole field being covered with concrete six to twelve feet deep and somebody being buried in the middle, he can find them or pinpoint over the location," Taul says, "The way he does that is work on the scent...he can sniff out a scent and it may take him a few minutes but then he'll pinpoint a certain area--mark, mark, mark."

Taul says Jesse does it for the love of his toy; for him it's a hide and seek game. He spots the victim; he gets his toy. In fact, he gives us a demo searching, and then finding, one of the trainees hidden in the pile of pallets.

As a testament to the dog's abilities, he and Taul are called away twice during today's training to respond to other calls.

It's clear Taul enjoys working with Jesse and he'd better; he's with the dog 24-hours a day.

"I see him more than I see my wife," says Taul laughing.

Taul then walks over to a nearby crate and introduces us to Rocky, a four-month-old pup (seen at left) in training to be Jesse's replacement when Jesse retires.

But back to the people--or what looks like someone who is laying underneath two huge concrete pipes. Actually, it is a life-like dummy, and the trainees need to get the concrete pipes lifted off of "him."

They can't just roll the pipes off because its likely there will be so much debris in a real disaster that rolling will be impossible. Instead they inflate rubber and kevlar bags, sort of ultra-balloons. The bags are attached to an air tank and when inflated, can support a huge amount of weight ranging from two tons with the smaller bag to a mammoth 37 tons using the large bag!

It takes about ten minutes to free the 'grateful' dummy.

The collaborative training provided by Novato Fire District, Marin USAR and the State of California Office of Emergency Services, mirrors the collaboration in the field. When disaster strikes, multiple agencies respond and they need to work seamlessly together. That's why this type of training is so important.

It's gratifying to see the efforts in Novato because as we're all painfully aware, there's a very high probability of a major quake striking the Bay Area in the next 20-30 years.

And it's just as likely these same people training today, will be on-scene, saving lives.

(more photos below)

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