Texas Task Force 1 is one of the most active search and rescue teams in the country, having responded to at least one major disaster each year since its inception in 1998. From the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, Texas Task Force 1’s urban search and rescue and water rescue teams have expertise in responding to both man-made and natural disasters.

Texas Task Force 1 functions as a federal team under FEMA’s national urban search and rescue program and as Texas’ only statewide urban search and rescue team under direction of the Governor’s Division of Emergency Management. Texas Task Force 1 also coordinates the state’s water rescue program.

Sponsored by TEEX and headquartered in College Station, Texas Task Force 1 boasts more than 300 highly trained members from 60 organizations throughout Texas. Members include firefighters, medical specialists, canines and handlers, heavy equipment operators, structural engineers and other specialty emergency responders. The team maintains a $5 million equipment cache of more than 12,000 items weighing in excess of 50,000 pounds.

Capabilities:

• Texas Task Force 1 members respond to mass casu­alty disasters and are trained and equipped to locate and extricate victims trapped in collapsed structures, confined spaces and trenches in highly populated areas.
• The Task Force is capable of responding to state and national disasters including earth­quakes, hurricanes, widespread tornadoes, floods, and man-made technological and terrorist events.
• The team is designed to be logistically self-suffi­cient for the first 72 hours of operation and is able to function for up to 10 days.
• Texas Task Force 1 can be further divided into 28-member teams that are capable of responding to light structural collapses and general rescue situations, as well as into wa­ter strike teams for flood response.

Personnel:

• Texas Task Force 1 is comprised of more than 300 emergency response personnel from 60 organizations and departments across the state.
• Task Force members are capable of de­ploying within four hours and are divided into three 70-member teams (red, white and blue), which are each on a 30-day rotational call.
• Each team has five components: a com­mand structure; a rescue group; a medical group; a logistics planning group and a search group, including canine search teams.

Equipment:

• Texas Task Force 1 maintains a $5 million state-of-the-art equipment cache of more than 12,000 items weighing in excess of 50,000 pounds.
• Equipment includes hydraulic jacks; rams; shoring; high-tech listening devices; hazardous material monitoring equipment; specialized victim location devices; breach­ing, breaking and lifting equipment; and medical and triage equipment.
• Swiftwater rescue equipment includes boats, personal floatation devices and ad­vanced communication equipment.

Training:

• Texas Task Force 1 trains at the world-renowned Disaster City™ in Col­lege Station. Disaster City is a 52-acre training facility that has been designed to simulate various levels of disaster and structural collapse. Filled with full-scale collapsible structures, the facility features a wide array of infrastructure found in every community, ranging from strip mall collaps­es to passenger train derailments.
• The team’s swiftwater rescue training occurs at high-current sites throughout Texas.

History:

• Texas Task Force 1 was formed after the 1995 bomb­ing of the Murrah Federal Building in Okla­homa City, Okla. The Task Force held its first organizational meeting on Feb. 14, 1997.
• The Task Force joined FEMA’s national urban search and rescue program in June 2001.

For more information about Texas Task Force 1, please visit http://usar.tamu.edu/.