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BY LARRY COLLINS

Only a select few firefighters have ever been inserted by helicopter (helo) onto the roof of a burning high-rise building. The pool of people who can speak from personal experience about conducting search, rescue, and firefighting operations by "working from the roof down" in high-rise emergencies after being deployed by helicopter is, thus, quite limited. Therefore, it's difficult for most of us (including me) to speak with true authority about if, when, and under exactly what conditions helicopters may (or may not) prove effective during the full range of high-rise emergencies we are likely to encounter in the coming years. It is hoped that this article will start the debate in an open forum so that we can develop a consensus based on experience and facts.

• At 9:02 a.m. on the morning of April 19, 1995 a bomb exploded from within a Ryder truck under the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast caused a partial collapse of all 9 floors of the 20-year-old building. 168 people died.
  
  
• Rescuers from the Oklahoma City Fire Department entered the building unsure of whether or not the building would continue to support its own weight. Most of the steel support system had been blown out.
  
  
• Within five hours of the blast the first FEMA urban search-and-rescue task force was deployed. By 6 p.m. the task force was in the building searching for victims. One of the first assignments was to search the second floor nursery for victims.
  
  
• Teams with search-and-rescue dogs began the search in the nursery. The dogs are trained to bark when they find live victims. No dogs barked that night.
  
  
• Eleven of FEMA's 27 US&R task forces worked in the building, with representation from virtually every task force in the country. The FEMA teams coordinated with local fire departments, police departments, military and federal agencies during the search-and-rescue effort.
  
  
• The rescue effort involved extensive stabilization of the fragmented building, rescuing of people trapped within tight spaces, rescues from high angles, breaking through concrete and hazardous materials analysis and removal.
  
  
• An innovative plan was developed to help rescuers deal with the psychological and emotional trauma of such a grisly scene. The plan allowed workers to be briefed in advance and prepared for what they were to experience, as well as extensive debriefing sessions.

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• The equipment cache used to support a task force weighs nearly 60,000 pounds and is worth about $1.4 million. Add the task force members to the cache and you can completely fill a military C-141 transport or two C130's.
  
  
• Logistics specialists handle the more than 16,400 pieces of equipment needed to support the task force. To ensure rapid response and to avoid burdening the already suffering community more, the task force equipment cache must be a mobile emergency room, construction site, communications center, high-tech engineering firm and camp rolled into one.
  
  
• The equipment cache allows the task force to be totally self-sufficient for up to four days.
  
  
• The equipment cache consists of five types of equipment: medical, rescue, communications, technical support and logistics.
  
  
• Medical supplies include various medicines, intravenous fluids, blankets, suture sets, airways, tracheal tubes, defibrillators, burn treatment supplies, bone saws and scalpels.
  
  
• The search component of the equipment is a lot like the equipment at a normal construction site. Common building supplies such as concrete saws, jackhammers, drills, lumber and rope are used to safely and slowly remove victims from the rubble.
  
  
• The communications section allows rescuers to stay in contact in case of a find or an evacuation. Generators, lights, radios, cellular phones, laptop computers and other electronics equipment are used.
  
  
• More than 500 items make up the technical support cache, the most high-tech of all the equipment. Snake-like cameras and fiber optic scopes are used to locate victims trapped in rubble. Sensitive listening devices that can detect even the slightest human sound locate victims who are still alive.
  
  
• The logistics section cares for the needs of the rescuers as they work in 12-hour shifts around the clock. Supplies include sleeping bags, cots, food and water, as well as cold weather gear.

• Search-and-rescue dogs and their handlers play an integral role in urban search-and-rescue (USAR) exercises, including the Mobility Exercise to take place at Ames/Moffett Airfield in California.
  
  
• Each canine/handler team must be certified in search-and-rescue.
  
  
• For the handler, certification includes written and verbal tests regarding search-and-rescue strategies, briefing and debriefing skills, and canine handling skills.
  
  
• For the search-and-rescue canine, certification includes proper command control, agility skills, barking alert skills to notify rescuers of a find, and willingness to overcome innate fears of tunnels and wobbly surfaces under the guidance of the handler.
  
  
• There are two levels of certification for search-and-rescue canine/handler teams. Basic certification requires the search animal to perform to specific standards under the handler's direct supervision and guidance. Advanced certification requires the search animal to perform to those standards outside the direct supervision and guidance of the handler, and to successfully search more difficult rescue simulation courses.
  
  
• Canine/handler teams must be re-certified at least every two years in order to participate in search and rescue operations.

While every search and rescue assignment is unique, a rescue might go something like this:

• Response always begins at the local level. Local rescuers always respond first. If the emergency is great enough, the state can request support from the FEMA task force.
  
  
• Following the disaster the local emergency manager requests assistance from the state, the state in turn requests federal assistance, and FEMA deploys the three closest task forces.
  
  
• After arriving at the site, structural specialists, who are licensed professional engineers, provide direct input to FEMA task force members about structural integrity of the building and the risk of secondary collapses.
  
  
• The search team ventures around and into the collapsed structure shoring up structures and attempting to locate trapped victims. The team uses electronic listening devices, search cameras and specially trained search dogs to locate victims.
  
  
• Once a victim is located, the search group begins the daunting task of breaking and cutting through thousands of pounds of concrete, metal, and wood to reach the victims. They also stabilize and support the entry and work areas with wood shoring to prevent further collapse.
  
  
• Medical teams, composed of trauma physicians, emergency room nurses and paramedics, provide medical care for the victims as well as the rescuers, if necessary. A fully stocked mobile emergency room is part of the task force equipment cache. Medics may be required to enter the dangerous interior of the collapsed structure to render immediate aid.
  
  
• Throughout the effort hazardous materials specialists evaluate the disaster site, and decontaminate rescue and medical members who may be exposed to hazardous chemicals or decaying bodies.
  
  
• Heavy rigging specialists direct the use of heavy machinery, such as cranes and bulldozers. These specialists understand the special dangers of working in a collapsed structure, and help to ensure the safety of the victims and rescuers inside.
  
  
• Technical information and communication specialists ensure that all team members can communicate with each other and the task force leaders, facilitating search efforts and coordinating evacuation in the event of a secondary collapse.
  
  
• Logistics specialists handle the more than 16,000 pieces of equipment to support the search and extrication of the victims. The equipment cache includes such essentials as concrete cutting saws, search cameras, medical supplies, and tents, cots, food and water to keep the task force self-sufficient for up to four days.

• For every US&R task force, there are 62 positions. But to be sure a full team can respond to an emergency, the task forces have at the ready more than 130 highly-trained members.
  
  
• A task force is really a partnership between local fire departments, law enforcement agencies, federal and local governmental agencies and private companies.
  
  
• A task force is totally self-sufficient for the first 72 hours of a deployment.
  
  
• The equipment cache used to support a task force weighs nearly 60,000 pounds and is worth about $1.4 million. Add the task force members to the cache and you can completely fill a military C-141 transport or two C130's.
  
  
• Training requirements are intensive, to say the least. In addition to being an Emergency Medical Technician, each task force member must complete hundreds of hours of training. Specialties such as K-9 search, rescue and rigging carry their own training requirements.
  
  
• What the task force can do:
  
  
  ? Conduct physical search-and-rescue in collapsed buildings
  ? Emergency medical care to trapped victims
  ? Search-and-rescue dogs
  ? Assessment and control of gas, electric service and hazardous materials
  ? Evaluation and stabilization of damaged structures

MARCH AIR RESERVE BASE, Calif. (AP) - Federal officials put on hold a planned trip to Iran by a Los Angeles-based search-and-rescue team today, minutes before the group was scheduled to take off in a military transport plane on a mission to aid victims of a devastating earthquake.