News from A+M University site
International graduation highlights
Texas Task Force 1 training partnership
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - A group of 48 emergency responders from the London
Fire Brigade will graduate from a structural collapse course in College Station
Saturday (May 29), culminating an unparalleled 13-month search and rescue training
partnership between the Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) and the United
Kingdom.
The partnership between TEEX's Texas Task Force 1 and the United Kingdom has
resulted in 500 U.K. emergency responders training at Disaster City in College
Station, including a local search and rescue crew from Glasgow, Scotland, that
responded to the May 11 Stockline Plastics factory explosion and made a live
rescue of a victim. To put the feat in perspective, the United States' 28 national
urban search and rescue teams have never made a live rescue.
"With what happened recently in Scotland, this partnership has already
paid tremendous dividends for the U.K. emergency responders," said TEEX's
Bob McKee, who heads Texas Task Force 1, the state's elite urban search and
rescue team. "We feel that this is just the beginning of a long reciprocal
relationship between the two countries, with TEEX, Texas Task Force 1 and Disaster
City continuing to play a major role."
A result of the United Kingdom's New Dimension Programme, the partnership is
an integral part of one of the most ambitious fire and rescue programs ever
undertaken by the country. After discussions with the Federal Emergency Management
Agency and an investigation of other training sites worldwide, United Kingdom
officials selected TEEX to develop and provide a modified version of FEMA's
structural collapse course at the agency's renowned Disaster City.
The training partnership between the United States and the United Kingdom is
expected to prove invaluable in the event that both countries are deployed to
a worldwide disaster in terms of the standardization of search and rescue procedures
and equipment.
Several dignitaries from the United Kingdom are scheduled to participate in
the graduation ceremony, which will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Rudder Theater at
Texas A&M University. Included in the group of speakers are Denis O'Driscoll,
divisional officer with the London Fire Brigade; John Anthony, assistant commissioner
of the London Fire Brigade; Dave Dickson of the U.K.'s Civil Resilience Directorate;
and Vice Consul Helen Mann of the British Consulate in Houston; as well as Texas
Task Force 1's McKee and TEEX Director Robert L. Smith.
For more information, contact
Author: Jason Cook
979/458-6837
jason.cook@teexmail.tamu.edu