FireRescue's Technical Rescue Web column
How It All Started
The history of the national Urban Search & Rescue program, part 1
By Harold Schapelhouman


During this current economic crisis, as many agencies struggle for survival and all of us look for answers, it’s easy to lose focus on the future. Where we are and where we need to go are often not the same place— and that applies to the nation’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) program.

As we approach the program’s 20th anniversary, it’s important to look back to see where we’ve been, and understand where we are today and how we got there. But it’s also important to look forward to where we need to go in the future so that the program continues to be relevant, responsive and collaborative with the nation’s responders, while best serving the public’s needs.

Bringing Things to a Head
The impetus behind the current program started long before Hurricane Hugo and the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989, but those two events brought to the forefront the nation’s lack of an organized national response system outside of military or individual state solutions.

Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was skilled in preparedness, mitigation and recovery, it had no true rescue response capability and it was becoming more than evident that the country needed and was demanding one.

Shortly after those two triggering national events, a group was assembled at the National Fire Academy to develop the operational system description for the national USAR program. Under the guidance of Chuck Mills who was under contract with the National Association of Search and Rescue (NASAR), the group was broken into specialties and worked for several days on position descriptions, concepts of operation and other relevant details.

As a young firefighter, I was humbled to be one of those selected to work on the project along with rescue legends, such as Chief Ray Downey of the FDNY, who was later killed during the collapse of the World Trade Center, and other professionals from throughout the country.

Making the List
In 1990, FEMA announced that it had selected 25 agencies from throughout the nation to become its first USAR task forces. In those days, the selection was based upon the primary threat of its two triggering events, earthquakes and hurricanes.


It’s interesting to note that although terrorism was mentioned and certainly had been discussed as one of the response profiles for the task forces, it was listed last and almost as an afterthought. Although terrorist activity was already a daily reality in places like the Middle East, claiming the lives of 250 U.S. Marines in Beirut in 1983, it was not something that had dramatically claimed lives on American soil—yet.

The east and west coasts gained the most advantage from the new program, with California claiming nearly one-third of the teams, or eight total. Today you can make the argument that this disproportionate number of teams wasn’t fair or prudent given the current “all risk” environment that we now live in. But in those early days, California possessed the strongest state-sponsored rescue programs; it was also the nation’s most populous state, had an economy that rivaled many larger countries and possessed a troubled history of natural and manmade disasters, especially earthquakes.

Being selected as a task force and actually putting together a task force capable of being effective were two very different things. There was no road map and no examples, and each agency struggled with how and where to best spend limited “hard-match” funds: Essentially, for every dollar that was spent from your agency, the federal government agreed to give you another dollar toward the purchase of an item on a very rudimentary equipment list and based upon your limited dollar award.

Although today we contemplate standardization and interoperability, in those days most agencies attempted to complement their own organizational standards and equipment or maximize their limited funds. Unfortunately, the opportunity to standardize equipment among the task forces wouldn’t occur again for more than a decade and would lead to future operational challenges not considered or ignored at the time.

Although a basic structure had been developed to launch the program, it was clear that the details would become part of the adventure as each task force struggled forward, purchasing equipment, securing storage, signing up team members, defining training requirements and much more.

The Vision
But the strength of the new program would not be found in the funds, equipment or basic guiding documents; it would be found in those individuals who believed in the vision of a national rescue program and who would spend countless hours dedicated to building that concept, working together to develop important professional relationships, friendships and a respect for each other critical to creating the system valued today.

Watch for my next columns in this series:
Part 2 – Building a Task Force from the Ground Up
Part 3 – The Hard Lessons of the First Deployments
Part 4 – The State Steps in
Part 5 - Where Are We Today?
Part 6 – The Military: Friend or Foe?
Part 7 – Looking Ahead: An Integrated National Response System

Harold Schapelhouman is a 28-year veteran firefighter with the Menlo Park (Calif.) Fire Protection District. At the start of 2007, he became the first internally selected fire chief in 21 years for his organization. Previously, he was the division chief in charge of special operations, which includes all district specialized preparedness efforts, the local and state water rescue program, and the local, state and national Urban Search and Rescue Program (USAR). Schapelhouman was the task force leader in charge of California Task Force 3, one of the eight California USAR teams and one of the 28 federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS/FEMA) teams.

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