Washington State Task Force One, Urban Search and Rescue is part of Pierce County Emergency Management. They are one of 28 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) task forces located around the country. Washington state has one, California has eight, but Washington is ready to help out California if called.
"Washington Task Force One is currently first in rotation..for the entire month of January. We're ready to load up and start driving in four to six hours." said manager Bill Palmer. "And given what's happening down there, they would likely call for additional search and recovery assets, probably not a full task force."
A warehouse of equipment, ranging from boats to outboard motors to cameras and TV monitors, to find people in collapsed buildings are part of the inventory, which is packed, ready to go and must be maintained at regular intervals.
And they are prepared to deal with mud, as they dealt with mud in the Oso landslide of March 2014. Oso is the worst landslide in U.S. history which killed 43 people.
