By Bill Zeeble, KERA reporter
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-595760.mp3
Dallas, TX – Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter: It looks like a chain saw, weighs about as much, and acts like one.
Brian corley, 19 year veteran: But it's made for cutting into concrete. Doesn't cut wood.
Zeeble: Brian Corley's a 19-year veteran with the Dallas Fire Department, and a member of Texas Task Force-2. The new force is one of only 2 specially trained and certified urban search and rescue teams in the entire state. It's used for emergency operations when local rescue personnel aren't enough.
Corley: These are diamond tip blades, that'll let us plunge cut, let's us cut through concrete and even rebar in the concrete.
Zeeble: This saw, and other tools, can help save survivors of natural and man-made disasters. They're more than pricey toys for big boys, as task force members sometimes joke. Other specialized saws slice through steel and aluminum with cool water running through them so they don't overheat during life-saving use. There are super strong, light-weight telescoping poles to reinforce a collapsing building, a flexible camera for viewing confined spaces, & another that shows heat-emitting images, when searching in the dark for lost or buried people.
Corley: So all tools on this vehicle are like tools on steroids.
88/4 Normal tools, but on steroids.
Zeeble: Thanks to them, members found a man lost at night in the woods. Altogether, this state-of-the-art search and rescue gear, and the big new truck that holds them, cost a million dollars. The money came from Homeland Security. Dallas Fire Department officials applied for it after realizing they needed more resources they could by forming this much-needed, 160 - member task force. It's made up of Dallas Fire Department members like 27-year veteran Robert Simmons.
Robert Simmons, Fire Department veteran: It's probably one of the hugest milestones in my 27 years.
Zeeble: The state's only other unit - the 10 year-old Texas Task Force-One - operates out of College Station. This 2nd state task force is officially just a few weeks old. Dallas Fire and Rescue Section Chief David Martin heads it.
Dave Martin, Program Director, TTF-2: This city and region was in need of more resources for urban search and rescue. You know we have resources here to handle hazardous materials, fires, flooding, This was one area that not just Dallas but the entire state was behind and needed some more resources.
Zeeble: Martin says Texas Task Force - 2 will mostly serve Dallas & the 16 county area of the North Texas Council of Governments. That covers nearly 13-thousand miles & some 6 million people. But if the governor's office calls, it could be dispatched anywhere across the state, according to Katherine Cesinger with the Governor's office.
120/Katherine Cesinger: We have the Gulf along the south and souteast, we're in tornado alley, we're subject to wild fires, severe storms.
Zeeble: Nationwide, only 28 other state operations like this exist, separate from any FEMA groups. If necessary, state operations could be used by FEMA, but Martin says more coordination work's still needed.
Martin: What happened in Katrina was kind of interesting. The federal government brought in all federal task forces from all over the country. That meant that task forces literally had to drive overland from California & Washington State. It took a lot of time and money to do that. And they didn't' bring in the state task forces that were closer together. Why call for a resource from L.A. County, when you've got one in Montgomery, Alabama or Dallas Texas?
Zeeble: Martin expects at the first hint of a Gulf hurricane, Task Force-2 will be deployed near the endangered coast, then dig in, waiting. For KERA 90.1 I'm Bill Zeeble
Bzeeble@Kera.Org