One year ago tonight, I deployed with UT-TF1 to Boulder, CO. If youre interested, here is something I wrote after the experience: **** As you probably know, I’m a member of FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Utah Task Force 1. We’re one of 28 task forces across the country to respond to disasters, natural or manmade. My task force was deployed the night of September 12-13, 2013 to Boulder, Colorado, responding to severe flooding. (Boulder received half its annual rainfall in a single day!) The timing was Mother Nature’s doing, but it was curious coming so soon after the anniversary of 9/11, when I’d been talking to my teammates and watching television shows about the Ground Zero deployment. My phone rang just after midnight Thursday night/Friday morning. The search team manager called to see if I could come do health checks on the dogs pre-deployment. I said sure, then realized as an afterthought that I would be deploying along with the dogs. I put on my uniform and boots, loaded up my stuff and drove to the warehouse. Lots of hurry up and wait as the leaders finalized the roster of 76 humans and four dogs. We got on the road around 6 AM and convoyed with trucks, SUV’s and 15-passenger vans. We headed east on I-80 into Wyoming with the intention of taking I-25 south from Cheyenne but all roads into Colorado were closed. We went further east and came down into Colorado through a roadblock then slowly came southwest toward Denver. Even with the command staff being in contact with police and highway patrol, we kept having to detour because of washed-out roads. Water level was high everywhere and rushing in some places. People in Boulder seemed pretty unconcerned about the flooding. Some stores were obviously closed, but there were plenty of people in the bars and restaurants for a Friday evening. We saw some dirt bikers having a ball in the mud covering the parking lot of a closed shopping mall. We finally arrived at the Boulder Airport at around 6 PM. Airport staff moved small prop planes out to the way to make room for our BoO (Base of Operations). Nebraska Task Force 1’s BoO was adjacent to ours, both tucked between two hangars. Saturday we spent most of the day at the BoO doing “just in time” training. The flooding was massive along the front range. We were in Boulder County but Larimer County was just as bad—task forces from Missouri, Colorado and Nevada were in Larimer. Many roads were washed out. A 12-foot wall of water had gone down one canyon. The weather was still so bad that no one could get up the canyons to even assess the situation. Army Blackhawks and Chinooks made runs up the mountain whenever the weather allowed, plucking people off roofs. We hoped that our people could ride up on the helicopters to get started so we had crash training in helicopter operations and GPS. Friday and Saturday the weather was hot and humid with sprinkles. Sunday was cold and rainy, and we finally got to get out of camp. We rode in open-top Army troop carriers in the pouring rain (someone said the truck tops were off for the publicity so all the Boulder residents could see FEMA coming to help). We stopped at a command post at the (not-so-fun) Fun Center (a mini golf place). The Salvation Army was at the post and kept offering us water, Gatorade, coffee, etc. but we were already cold and soaked through our Gore-Tex. Finally we started up the canyon. We were to go door to door, strongly encouraging people to evacuate. The road at the bottom of the canyon was in imminent danger of collapse. The houses were all huge, multi-million dollar homes. Many people had already evacuated but the ones who were still there needed convincing. Authorities were saying it could be months or even a year for repair of infrastructure. Some residents said, we’re fine, we’ve got supplies; others said okay; others refused to talk to anyone federal. My squad hiked up to a ridgeline. I was stationed on the ridge as a radio relay when they went down the other side, and spent several hours in the rain and wind uncontrollably shivering. After we finished the neighborhood, our Army guys drove us to a fire station to rest. It was about 5 PM. The firehouse is inexplicably located immediately downstream from an earthen dam. In the shadow of the dam, right next to the sluiceway. The locals assured us that the dam was most likely safe, but my teammates were concerned. I was so cold I didn’t care whether we washed away in the firehouse or not. I took off my soaked jacket and poured the water out of my boots. My boots had filled up within the first hour of our mission, so I had spent hours standing in cold water. A nice volunteer lady at the firehouse made me hot soup. Finally at 6:30 it was time to return to the airport, again in the open-top troop transport in the pouring rain. Everyone was miserable, even the Labrador retriever search dog who loves water. I skipped dinner and shower and sat in front of the heater in the mess tent for an hour. Besides being cold and wet and miserable, I realized that going out with a squad was not the best idea—I had been miles away from all but one dog, unable to help if any of the dogs had gotten injured. Monday, rather than going out with rescue squads, I stayed at the Incident Command Post (ICP) at the main hangar, to be available for veterinary work. Many evacuees were still being helicoptered off the mountain with their pets. The helicopter would land, a squad of wildland firefighters would run out and pass luggage and pet carriers along the line. Animal Control gathered the pets in a few dozen carriers in one corner of the ICP while people checked in with FEMA. Red Cross provided food and wildland fire provided strong coffee brewed in a kettle over a camp stove. An amazing number of evacuees had pets—many dogs, including some huge ones, some cats, and occasional exotics: parrots, turtles, small mammals, geese, fish, and even a monkey. After the evacuees finished checking in (usually 30-60 minutes) they reclaimed their pets and boarded a school bus to go to the shelter with co-located pet shelter. A few pets had minor abrasions or lacerations, but most were surprisingly happy and healthy. Even the cats and birds seemed remarkably content, considering they had just gotten off a massive Chinook helicopter. It was amazing how many hundreds of people were working the disaster from many different local, state, and federal agencies and organizations: police, sheriff, fire, wildland fire, FEMA, Army, Red Cross, Animal Control, search and rescue. I met people from such varied backgrounds as an Army chaplain to a Boulder city code enforcement officer (who usually busts people for marijuana offenses) to a Red Cross photographer. Everyone was really positive and friendly, united by a desire to make a difference in the world.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 14:10:20 +0000
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