US&R exercising goes international at Fort Widley in UK

By Stephen Prendergast
From the HPP archives: Tough calls in Bam

[Editor's note: This article has been adapted from one that appeared earlier this year in the VectorCommand Bulletin.]

On Dec. 26, 2003, most of the Iranian city of Bam was devastated by an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 on the Richter scale. News reports suggested that 70 percent of the modern city of Bam was destroyed, with a death toll estimated to be around 26,000, and with an additional 30,000 people injured. The historic Bam Citadel, at the time the world's biggest adobe structure and dating to 500 BC, was leveled.

Following the earthquake, Urban Search and Rescue teams from around the world flew to Iran to help local forces rescue survivors. Included in the international response were teams from the U.K. and the U.S. Several of the members of such teams had also worked together in Armenia following the major earthquake there in 1988. [Ed.: See "Tough calls in Bam," from the October 2004 issue of Homeland Protection Professional.]

Rehearsing how best to manage the insertion and management of multi-national US&R teams into a disaster zone is the purpose of a U.K.-led programme of international US&R exercises organised by Hampshire Fire and Rescue’s US&R team, supported by the Department for International Development. The objectives are to improve common methods of working, improve command and control systems, and build the networks and relationships which will make future rescues in earthquake-hit areas more effective, thereby saving lives. 

In June of this year, members of the U.K. Fire Service’s Search and Rescue Teams group (UKFSSART) and U.S. teams from Los Angeles and Fairfax County, Va., acknowledged specialists in urban search and rescue, some of whom had participated in the Bam and Armenia earthquake rescues, took part in a unique multi-national US&R exercise near Portsmouth. They were joined by US&R units from Germany, South Africa and Northern Ireland, along with observers and advisors from the United Nations–supported International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG).

The location for the exercise was Fort Widley, overlooking Portsmouth Harbour, supplemented by another site with a ruined building. The fort, one of a number of large-scale fortifications built during the mid-19th century to defend Portsmouth naval dockyard, is an ideal location for US&R training. It has a complex network of tunnels, gun ports and entrances, high walls, and deep, stone-walled moats. These, along with added external and internal rubble and other obstacles such as overturned cars, provided the perfect conditions for realistic, challenging exercising of US&R teams operating over a dispersed area.

“The exercise not only provided excellent practical US&R training for all concerned, but also allowed fairly high-level coordination and planning issues to be practiced in reality, not just as table top or other simulation.”

Imagery from a radio controlled helicopter was fed into the Command Support System to build a Common Operational Picture throughout the command hierarchy and across the incident ground. (Stephen Prendergast/VectorCommand)

Lessons learned at Fort Widley

Peter Crook, the Widley exercise director, outlines key lessons learned from the Fort Widley international US&R exercise.

A command support structure was added in the form of a command unit and a US&R-trained command support team which maintains risk assessments, personnel accountability and other aspects of command support. With the other support elements, this allowed a mixed group from two American US&R teams, Germany’s THW SEEBA Team, Rescue South Africa and Northern Ireland to take on a very realistic US&R exercise utilising a wide range of specialised equipment.

Supporting the exercise was a substantial team from Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, including Hampshire’s own US&R vehicles and equipment. 

The scenario involved searching for and rescuing trapped casualties resulting from a massive earthquake. The schedule had rescues being dealt with first by the combined international teams (acting as local forces) and then the UKFSSART contingent arriving as an international contingent. 

Initial briefings to the teams were provided by the local mayor (played by Peter Crook, the exercise director and chief organiser, whose normal role is head of Hampshire FRS’s US&R team). After the briefing, the teams dispersed to begin risk assessment and searching using search-and-rescue dogs and gas-detection equipment. Fort Widley’s massive tunnel system, with narrow tunnel entrances and multiple levels (along with added rubble, destroyed vehicles and injury dummies) provided plenty of opportunities for exercising skills in risk assessment; the use of props, lifting and cutting equipment; and casualty extraction from difficult locations.

Replicating the practice at real incidents, the exercise ran day and night, so teams needed to be scheduled for shifts, allowing opportunities for handovers between shifts and regular consistent reporting to the central command and follow-on commanders. An independent overview and advice were provided by the INSARAG observers, three highly experienced US&R commanders, one from South Africa, one from Sweden and one from the U.S., Dewey Perks, from Fairfax County, who has extensive response experience at international disasters.

Throughout the exercise, Hampshire FRS staff provided full 24-hour organisation, command, communications, logistics, transport and catering support for the 200 or so personnel involved. Technical staff from VectorCommand also provided supplementary assistance in the form of the Command Support System, which was found to be particularly useful for the sharing and examination of imagery from the radio-controlled helicopter and ground-level cameras. 

Over the three days of the exercise, the United Kingdom group had the following teams taking part in the exercise: Hampshire Fire and Rescue, West Midlands, West Sussex, Kent, Essex, Mid & West Wales, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Lincolnshire. The remaining UKFSSART teams (South Wales, Cheshire, Leicestershire and Grampian) also supported the organisation with personnel helping behind the scenes. A key pre-condition of attendance at the exercise was that all the U.K. teams (acting as the international contingent) had to deploy fully self-sufficient, with command and logistics facilities, cooking, radio communications, ablutions and tents. 

According to Perks, the integrated multi-national training was a key highlight of the event: "This approach is something I have never experienced in all my travels. I should add that we preach the combining of resources every day in the INSARAG Guidelines, but until this year’s Widley event it had never been done. There were initial concerns of how to do this, meaning to accommodate different training techniques, cultures and of course the use of English in rescue work.

"Pete Crook devised a marvellous team-building activity where each participant introduced himself, announced his strengths and weaknesses, and then accepted his assignment without pause. In one short week at Widley, the U.K. was able to prove that such integration could be done, and be done effectively."

According to Peter Crook, “This was the most ambitious exercise we have attempted to date, and apparently the first ever to get a mixed international group of US&R practitioners to form up into one operational US&R team and then work together at a realistic exercise. While we don’t suggest this is the way for teams to deploy in the future, it greatly enhances the chances that the teams involved will work far more effectively together when they find themselves at the same incident.

International USAR crews worked together through the day and night to install shoring timbers and rescue 'live' and dummy victims positioned throughout the Fort Widley complex. (Stephen Prendergast/VectorCommand)

Search, shoring, breaking and breaching, hot cutting, scene assessment, lighting, and other equipment were used extensively and very successfully. The exercise for this international group lasted three days and two nights, and while seriously challenging the skills and stamina of the personnel proved the value of the equipment provided to all the U.K. US&R teams.

The exercise was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Mixing individuals from different country’s US&R units into one team to work together has never been attempted before. This aspect was highly successful, and all the participants commented on the value of working so closely with international colleagues, learning many things from each other. Observers from the European Union and U.N. also made very positive comments and have already fed back comments suggesting that such exercises should be encouraged in the future to improve joint working at international incidents.

1. Having two fully operational US&R teams working alongside each other allowed realistic liaison and joint working, replicating very closely what happens at major international incidents like the Bam or Pakistan earthquakes.
   
2. The injection of the U.N. On-Site Operations Cordination Centre concept on top of team structures again enhanced the exercise, allowing the commanders to practice skills they rarely get the chance to experience for real.
   
3. We proved that an effective command structure and command support system, the details of which were previously unknown to the individuals, can allow a completely ad hoc mixed group of US&R practitioners to become operationally effective very quickly.
   
4. There are clear dangers in multiple command structures and systems duplicating and confusing information that is not fully shared and, more importantly, processed properly, the lesson being that highly effective overall co-ordination is essential. The different teams involved should then also be fully involved with the co-ordinating body.
   
5. Shared information and management of logistics is potentially highly beneficial. This applies to the U.K. team that currently deploys with a mixture of different groups within the overall team, each with their own logistics system rather than one overall system. It also applies when more than one team are operating in the same area, when the benefits of organising logistical issues through one point of co-ordination would have various benefits.
   
6. Everyone involved commented on the benefit of working with individuals from a wide range of different US&R teams and countries. Everyone learnt something from someone else.
   
7. Another knock-on effect is the value of actually knowing other individuals when you end up on the ground in a disaster zone; joint working/co-ordination is instantly easier. The exercise allowed around 200 US&R practitioners from seven countries and over 20 US&R teams to work together in some way, and at some future earthquake in a remote corner of the world, or a major incident in the U.K., this will help save lives.