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GROUND SAR

Teams respond to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
by Brandie Howey
This past September, two members of Edmonton Regional Search and Rescue, and one from Community Emergency Response Team - Northwest Territories (CERT-NWT), flew to Gulfport, Mississippi to help with relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina, and again to Texas after Hurricane Rita.

Bob Davies and Daryl Black, both of ERSARA along with Tony Clarke from CERT-NWT, went to the area as 'Team Canada' at the request of World Wide Disaster Relief, based in Texas. Due to their advanced medical knowledge and training in technical rescue, the three members of Team Canada were well prepared to deal with the chaotic and uncertain situations following Hurricane Katrina.

After a rocky start to the mission where flights were promised and then rescinded, Mr. Black, Mr. Davies and Mr. Clarke decided to use their personal air miles to begin their mission. For the five days, the three-man team was assigned to act as the medical component for a U.S. National Guard unit. As such, they worked in areas consisting mainly of government housing.

In these vast complexes, residents were either physically unable to evacuate or did not have the resources to do so and were forced to endure the storm. They had not had outside contact since the hurricane hit. These were called 'Pathfinder' missions: literally going door-to-door, breaching where necessary, and asking if the residents inside needed medical attention, medicine, or help in any way. The team had to evacuate a number of people, most of whom had not been able to see a doctor, call for an ambulance, or get transportation to any medical facility. As it turned out, the communications equipment Mr. Black brought from ERSARA was the only kind in their Pathfinder mission, including the National Guard units to which they were assigned.

The residents in this area of Gulfport, Mississippi, had to cope with flooding, structural damage, loss of power and communications. Mr. Black recalls one area where residents of a building complex had used a pool to deal with the lack of running water. "Young boys were wheeling buckets of human waste to the pool where they would empty them into the water. It was not a pleasant thing to see."

There were many challenges the team faced while completing their mission. First, the extreme 40-45 degree Celsius heat was a factor in medical emergencies, including those involving fellow workers. Second, the need for the team to be completely self-sufficient was extremely important. This meant bringing their own food and water, as well as dealing with waste. There were no hotels available, so they slept under the stars each night, usually by the side of the road near their vehicle.

"Improvising was a necessity," said Mr. Davies. "We had to make sure we weren't going down there as a burden to an already strained relief effort; we made sure we had everything we needed to take care of ourselves 100 per cent."

Hurricane Rita
For Hurricane Rita, which hit just days after Katrina, things were different. Mr. Black, who had returned from responding to Hurricane Katrina a week before, answered the mutual aid request once again along with Jim Martin of CERT-NWT and Jay O'Connor, an emergency planner from Manitoba. The air miles were donated this time by a Sutherland Drugs store in Yellowknife.

At one point during the 10-day mission, they were driving at night along a single lane road to reach a town that needed assistance.
"There were literally hundreds of alligators along the sides of the road," Mr. Black explained. "Their eyes look like red marbles in the headlights. They even scurried across the road along with the snakes."

Following search and rescue operations throughout the southeast of Texas and parts of Louisiana, the team moved to Deweyville, in southeast Texas. There they operated the ambulance service, giving the extremely overworked local EMS a break.

'Canadian Medics'
In fact, this resulted in the team being on-call for 115 hours straight, during which time they responded to various calls ranging from an accident involving a 10 year-old on a four-wheeler to elderly patients with shortness of breath. Due to the team's bright orange pants and outgoing personalities, Mr. Black said, everyone in the town and hospital knew them.

"As we pulled up in the unit, the nurses and doctors in the hospital would say 'here come the Canadian Medics!' Near the end of our deployment they even took pictures," he added.

An elderly woman named Cora provided one of the mission's most emotional and fond memories. Cora was transported to the hospital because of a severe respiratory infection. Later, her husband tracked down the rescuers for a tearful reunion where she called them her 'angels' for saving her life.

These 'Canadian Medics' answered the call by selflessly using their own resources, training and talents for people hundreds of miles away who were in desperate and immediate need.

Brandie Howey is a long-time member of the Edmonton Regional SAR Association.

Propelled into action
The hurricanes in the southern United States propelled Canadians into action, especially the search and rescue personnel - paid and unpaid - able to help out.

Harry Blackmore, President of the Search and Rescue Volunteer Association of Canada (SARVAC), was asked by the regional Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada office to find volunteers willing to help in the hardest hit areas. Around 650 volunteers came forward from all across Canada, although in the end, they did not need to be deployed.

Vancouver's Urban SAR response
The Vancouver Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team also assisted in the disaster. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit, Tim Armstrong of Vancouver USAR was asked if his team was ready to respond.

Over the next 12 hours, Mr. Armstrong gathered 15,000 lbs of equipment and 46 rescue specialists.

For the next six days, Mr. Armstrong and other members of the team worked 18 to 20 hours per day in Chalmette, LA, one of the hardest hit areas.

"It is crucial that teams are able to be totally self-sufficient," explained Mr. Armstrong.

While in Louisiana, the team discovered that all forms of modern communication were not working and the satellite phones had limitations. As well, given the conditions and desperation of citizens, it was often dangerous for first responders to operate in the area. Because the team was working in conjunction with the state police, armed officers were assigned to the members for protection.

"The actual rescue efforts are a very small piece of the overall deployment," Mr. Armstrong said. "Team safety, movement and accountability become the biggest challenges."

Canadian Forces and Canadian Coast Guard
As well, three Navy ships and one Canadian Coast Guard ship, joined by several Sea King helicopters, went to the Gulf Coast in September with emergency supplies. The 1,000 Canadian Forces and Coast Guard personnel brought clean water, tents, cots, body bags, assault boats, lumber, pollution clean-up equipment, bug spray, diapers and baby wipes.

Canadian Navy divers from Halifax, N.S. and Esquimalt, B.C. were tasked to help their American counterparts clear navigational hazards such as loose barges and inspect damaged levees.

Parks Canada and North Shore Rescue use new avalanche rescue system
by Dan Kostrzewski

Parks Canada's Mountain Safety Program and North Shore Rescue have integrated the RECCO Avalanche Rescue System into their rescue response plans.

Although the two organizations are structured differently - one volunteer and the other government - each shoulders a heavy responsibility for some of the most highly trafficked backcountry zones in Canada. Statistically, both operations average close to 300 rescues a year in rugged, mountainous and avalanche-prone terrain.

RECCO is a small, electronic device used to help locate avalanche victims. RECCO pinpoints a victim's precise location using harmonic radar. The two-part system consists of a RECCO detector used by organized rescue groups, and RECCO reflectors that are integrated into clothing or gear.

"More and more people are skiing with this type of device now," said Tim Jones, manager of North Shore Rescue. "Anything that can make it easier to find somebody makes it easier on us - that's the bottom line."

"The fact that most of our responses would also involve using a helicopter and that RECCO is very small, very light and very easy to use, means that it's a piece of rescue equipment that will be taken to a rescue scene," explains Gord Irwin, Mountain Safety Program manager for Banff, Yoho, and Kootenay National Parks.

"The other benefit is that if the rescue is not helicopter-assisted, it still comes down to it's small and it's light, so it is easily transported to a rescue scene and is a tool that actually will be taken immediately."

"With very minimal cost on the part of skiers, they can have something in their clothing or equipment that would enable a rescue group to find them," Irwin said.

"Now, I still don't think it's a substitute for self-rescue, but certainly from the point of view of a rescue team it will greatly decrease the amount of time that we would be in a search, particularly for the people who don't have beacons and therefore it minimizes the risk and exposure time of the rescue team. But more importantly, it enhances the chances of survival for someone who is caught in an avalanche."

Dan Kostrzewksi is a writer and a teacher for recreational avalanche courses at Washington's Mt. Baker's Mountain Education Center, and works with RECCO.

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