Search and Rescue
Oct 1, 2005 12:00 PM, BY MICHAEL FICKES
Except for emergency operations at the Alfred P. Murrah FBI building in Oklahoma City and at the World Trade Center towers, first responders have had little experience with search-and-rescue operations following the collapse of a major building.
Michigan Urban Search and Rescue (MUSAR), an organization providing disaster response training to Michigan first responders, has joined with Michigan's International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) to help change that. At the end of September, the Howell (Mich.) Education Center, operated by the IUOE, unveiled a course of study designed to teach emergency responders to search for, find and rescue victims trapped beneath a collapsed building.
“The county decided it needed people trained as structural collapse technicians,” says Ron Zawlocki, battalion chief with the City of Pontiac Fire Department and a task force leader for MUSAR.
The classroom is a collapsed five-story building designed, built and collapsed by the IUOE. The piled rubble includes walls, floors and roofs as well as concrete, steel, wood and re-bar structural supports.
“The site is designed so that four teams can start at four different access points and carry out separate rescue missions,” says Gregg A. Newsom, the Howell Center's training director.
The eight-day course covers challenges that first responders will likely encounter in a collapsed building. “This new facility will enable us to teach many different techniques,” Zawlocki says.
Specific areas of training include lifting and moving materials; cutting and breaking concrete, steel and wood; and shoring and stabilizing parts of the building. “All the while, you are moving from point A to point B, looking for victims and figuring out how to get them out,” Zawlocki says.
A Homeland Security grant acquired by MUSAR paid for the site, curriculum development and equipment.
Five instructors certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) teach the Howell Center course, which is one of only three programs in the United States certified by FEMA to train first responders about search and rescue in collapsed buildings. FEMA centers that offer this kind of training are located on the campus of Texas A & M, College Station, Texas, and in Virginia Beach, Va.
MUSAR and the Operating Engineers have worked together on other educational programs. Back in 1999, MUSA asked the IUOE to help train first responders to work with big cranes during emergencies involving downtown high-rise buildings.
That project led the two organizations to develop a course to train emergency responders to deal with trenching cave-ins that can trap construction workers. “In the years since we have been offering that course, we have responded to a number of trench collapse emergencies around Michigan,” Zawlocki says. “As a direct result of being trained in this program, we have saved six people trapped by six cave-ins around the state.”
“This is an unusual cooperative program between a public organization — MUSAR — and a private organization — the Operating Engineers, but we have developed a good working relationship over the years,” Zawlocki says.
The inaugural building collapse course attracted 54 students from fire departments throughout nearby Oakland County, Zawlocki says. Each participating department was invited to send a maximum of three people, and approximately 20 departments participated.
“We are planning another course for Oakland County fire fighters,” Zawlocki says. “In 2006, we will run a course open to firefighters from departments everywhere in Michigan.”
“I think this kind training will make everyone in our state a little safer,” Newsom says. “Whether we are dealing with a tornado, natural gas explosion or terrorist act, there will be more well-prepared people ready to respond and save lives.”
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© 2010 Penton Media Inc.
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