The Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) task force team from Vancouver indicated immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit shore that its services would be available to the Americans as needed, and last night at 5:00 PM, the Governor of Louisiana phoned and said, bring it!
Three hours later, they were on a plane to Louisiana. Three hours later.
They are completely self-sufficient for ten days, so as to not complicate relief efforts.
The capabilities of the US&R Task Force include, but are not limited to the following:
Physical search and rescue operations in damaged/collapsed structures.
Emergency medical care to disaster response personnel.
Emergency medical care to the injured.
Reconnaissance to assess damages and needs and provides feedback to local, provincial and federal officials.
Assessment of utilities to houses and buildings.
Structural/hazard evaluations of government/municipal buildings needed for immediate occupancy to support disaster relief operations.
Stabilization of damaged structures, including shoring and cribbing operations, on damaged buildings.
Water rescue operations.
Unlike the Chretien/Martin Liberal federal government, who responds to crises by issuing press releases and assembling liberal elite bureaucrats to ponder the concept of sending the “emergency”, “rapid-response”, D.A.R.T. team sometime in the next 3 to 6 weeks, as they did during the tsunami crisis in southeast Asia after it was already too late, this small group of brave, skilled volunteers—proud brave Canadians—is already there.
Already
,
there
.
Members of the team are representative of the following agencies:
Vancouver Fire & Rescue Services
Vancouver Engineering Department
Vancouver Police Department
British Columbia Ambulance Service
Vancouver Permits and Licenses
Delta Fire-Rescue
Surrey Fire & Rescue
Two independent Emergency Physicians
Vancouver’s urban search and rescue team is the only one of its kind in Canada certified by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and will follow its chain of command in the U.S.
Below, Doug Wilkinson says goodbye to his wife Sandra, and children Samuel, 3, and Daniel, 7. The B.C. Ambulance paramedic is one of 45 members of the Vancouver urban search and rescue team heading to the U.S. Gulf Coast Wednesday.
CREDIT: Peter Battistoni, Vancouver Sun
Go team! Go Canada!
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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