USAID sends Los Angeles and Virginia search and rescue teams to Japan
Submitted by Anissa Ford on 2011-03-12

The United States Agency for International Development is sending two rescue mission teams to Japan. The two search and rescue teams are leaving Los Angeles and Fairfax, Virginia to answer Japan's earthquake and tsunami events disaster response call.

74 members of Los Angeles County's Urban Search and Rescue team are going to Japan to help with rescue and recovery efforts. 72 are going from the Fairfax team.

The LA team told a local Los Angeles ABC station that they are waiting to find out if they'll arrive in Japan via commercial or military flight out of LAX. LA County's Urban Search and Rescue team conducted rescue efforts in Haiti last year. They were on standby for assisting with rescue efforts in Chile and also helped earthquake victims in New Zealand.

The LA team in Haiti team had doctors, engineers, fire fighters, communication specialists and rescue dogs. The team headed to Japan is taking 45,000 pounds of equipment with them including pneumatic lifts, boats to deal with flooding and search and retrieval canines.

The team also has infrared and listening equipment to find persons within a building. The USAR team is large enough that the crew who recently returned from New Zealand can stay behind on this mission so as not to respond to a second international disaster relief trip so soon.

There is one other team from the US that makes international rescue trips from Fairfax, Virginia. The United States Agency for International Development activated their Fairfax County search and rescue team to aid in rescue efforts in Japan.

The Fairfax team was called Friday afternoon and 72 of the teams 200+ members will travel to Japan with six search and rescue dogs. Fairfax's team is brining cameras, breaking tools, listening devices and swift water boats to search for residents who may be alive underneath the debris.

The Fairfax department's rescue team was established in 1986 as a domestic and international disaster response unit under the realm of the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. Fairfax also utilizes emergency managers, planners, physicians and paramedics and structural engineering, heavy rigging, collapse rescue, logistics, hazardous materials, communications, canine and technical search specialists.

Both the Los Angeles and Fairfax Search Teams are trained to respond to international natural disaster rescue missions. They can excavate people trapped under rubble and in the water or from wherever they may need rescuing.

USAID pays 100 percent reimbursement for any deployment by both US teams.

The Los Angeles Dep. Chief Dave Stone from Los Angeles County Fire said they will start taking a building apart with the least chance of hurting the person trapped in there. But he added that there is concern about aftershocks.