| Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department
4100 Chain Bridge Rd, Fairfax, Virginia 22030
703-246-3801, TTY 703-385-4419 and 703-385-1687
www.fairfaxcounty.gov/fire
08/31/2005
Virginia Task Force One (VATF1), Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department’s urban search and rescue team, returns tonight from a week-long deployment to Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It will return at approximately 7 p.m., arriving at the Department’s Fire and Rescue Academy, located at 4600 West Ox Road, Fairfax.
Virginia Task Force One departed Tuesday, August 30, and established a base camp in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. The team was given the mission of damage assessment, search, and rescue and recovery along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The 34-member FEMA Type III task force focused its efforts in the hard-hit communities of Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian, and Waveland, Mississippi.
As an invaluable local disaster resource, the task force is one of 28 FEMA-sponsored teams, and one of only two US-based teams capable of world-wide deployment through an agreement with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The team has responded globally to natural and manmade disasters, including earthquakes in Turkey, Taiwan, and Iran, Oklahoma City bombing, 9-11-01 Pentagon attack, and the tsunami in Indonesia last year.
While deployed, task force personnel used sophisticated detection devices and canines to rapidly and efficiently search for victims that were trapped in collapsed structures, or buried under debris. Assigned structural engineers, physicians and paramedics, logisticians and other professionals worked closely with local emergency management officials to ensure hurricane-affected areas were thoroughly searched. In addition to providing community closure by locating several victims, the team was called upon to assist with the medical care and transportation of an elderly survivor, found in the woods by local residents.
News representatives will have an opportunity to interview team members upon their arrival.
Fairfax County is committed to nondiscrimination on the basis of disability in all county programs, services and activities. Reasonable accommodations will be provided upon request. For information, call 703-246-3801 and TTY 703-285-4419.
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