THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 23, 1995 TAG: 9504210198
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
A contingent of Hampton Roads experts in disaster and rescue work flew to Oklahoma City Thursday morning to help dig out and treat victims of a Wednesday car bombing that has resulted in more than 36 deaths so far.
The 56 locals belong to Virginia Task Force II, one of 25 such groups organized across the country by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Hurricane Hugo battered South Carolina in September 1989.
The first mission for the Virginia Beach-based task force was to set up operations in Petersburg in September 1993 after a tornado ripped through historic sections of the antebellum Virginia city.
Now they are headed to the scene of another national calamity to perform a grim, but needed, humanitarian task.
Once in Oklahoma City, the group will help disaster work in progress, said Virginia Beach Deputy Fire Chief Jimmy Carter, who helped organize the task force. This means finding and removing victims, living and dead, from the debris of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Among the dead in the morning blast were at least 12 children in a second-floor day-care center.
Virginia's team is made up of firefighters/paramedics from Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake and Newport News, said Carter. It includes dog handlers from the Virginia Department of Emergency Services, and structural engineers, technicians and trauma doctors from every community in Hampton Roads.
Carter said the structural engineers and technicians are employees of private companies in this area who volunteered for the team. They have the expertise to shore up the loose concrete slabs and probe, with electronic devices, the rubble for victims in what's left of the nine-story building.
The team includes dogs trained to sniff out the living and the dead.
Team physicians will aid in on-site treatment of victims and care for emergency workers who are injured or suffer from fatigue.
Within six hours of being alerted by FEMA, task force members flew to Oklahoma. They are expected to return to Hampton Roads within six days, said Carter.
A similar team from Arizona, the closest to the bombing site, was called in shortly after the blast. Another from Sacramento, Calif., was placed on standby Wednesday.
While in Oklahoma City, the Virginia group is expected to be self-sufficient, said Carter, meaning they are prepared to fix their own meals and provide for their own lodgings - even if it means setting up tents near the disaster site.
The task force has been four years in the making. It was formed after Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf deployed a group of Virginia Beach municipal employees to South Carolina in 1989 to help Charleston residents dig themselves out of the devastation wrought by Hugo.
Virginia's team and 24 others were formed at the behest of FEMA after Hugo's passage stirred a national uproar about the alleged lack of national emergency preparedness. The initial response to that catastrophe was - by all accounts - disorganized and hit-or-miss at best.
Now, when national emergencies require immediate response, the closest teams are called in, while others are placed on alert - a standby status that means they should be packed up and ready to go on six hours' notice.
The Virginia group was organized and trained under Chase Sargent, a battalion chief with the Virginia Beach Fire Department, said Carter.
Sargent was in charge of recruiting and training but, unfortunately, was on vacation in New York when the Virginia team flew out of Norfolk for Oklahoma.
He is undoubtedly kicking himself because he missed the chance to be with the team at a crucial time, Carter agreed.
KEYWORDS: RESCUE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING FEDERAL BUILDING FEMA
DISASTER by CNB