FireRescue magazine's Technical Rescue Web column
California Takes the Lead: The history of the national Urban Search & Rescue program, part 4
By Harold Schapelhouman

Editor's Note: This article is part of a series on the history of the national USAR program. Read the previous posts:
Part 1: How It All Started
Part 2: From the Ground Up
Part 3:The First Deployment: Hurricane Iniki

Long before the start of the National Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Program, the State of California was focused on disaster preparedness, specifically as it related to earthquake response and firefighter training.

Early Earthquake Preparedness
In the late 1970s, the California State Fire Marshal’s office resurrected training that had been created and used during World War II. The training courses dealt specifically with improvised rescue techniques that could be used for structural collapse; they were eventually certified by the fire marshal’s office and deemed “heavy rescue” courses.

Jim Mendonsa led the effort in the northern portion of the state at Camp Parks while Mike McGroarty covered the southern portion, working out of Port Yanimie. Both men pioneered early rescue training curriculum in the state, eventually transforming outdated heavy-rescue concepts into today’s Rescue Systems Training, which was adopted and taught to firefighters in almost every department in the state at a time when standardized rescue techniques were almost nonexistent.

The State Office of Emergency Services (OES) was also working to coordinate earthquake preparedness and response. California had sent resources to Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake as well as responded to the Sylmar Earthquake in Southern California in 1988. Understanding what a strong earthquake could do to a metropolitan region and urban city was sobering and directly concerned the agency that would coordinate state-wide response and manage resource requests.

Key Players of the 80s
In the late 1980s, key figures joined others who’d been working behind the scenes on rescue techniques pertaining to earthquake response. The husband/wife couple of Dave and Shirley Hammond, who had responded to Mexico City as a structural engineer and a search dog handler, respectively, were joined by Dr. Dick Andrews and Mark Ghilarducci, who worked with the OES’s Earthquake Program.

Andrews would later become the head of the OES and Ghilarducci would become the Deputy Director before leaving the agency to work for Witt and Associates, run by former FEMA Director James Lee Witt. The Hammonds would become leaders inside and outside the state. Their involvement in the National Response System (NRS) continues to help build the Structural Engineering, Heavy Equipment and K-9 Search and Recovery components of the system.

Lois Clarke McCoy, a proponent of improving the state’s response capability and system, was also a strong organizer and never shied away from telling state legislators that improvement and funding was needed. McCoy later started a group called Urban Search and Rescue Incorporated, which became an early vehicle for those interested in improving the state’s response system and capability.

As the 1980s came to an end, two national events catapulted California and these individuals into the forefront of what would become a national movement to create the NRS.

The Birth of the NRS
The 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, which struck Northern California, and Hurricane Hugo, which impacted the Eastern seaboard, forever changed rescue operations in the United States. After these events, groups from across the nation demanded that the federal government establish some kind of organized rescue agency, and many of those voices came from California. One year later, the National Response System was established.

Under the leadership of Deputy Director Andrews, California secured eight of the 25 coveted new National Response Task Forces. “The Great Eight,” as they would later come to be known, would thrive under the watchful eye of Ghilarducci, who became their greatest supporter, organizer, advocate and leader.

State OES provided support to its new task forces in the form of standardized equipment purchases, access to surplus military equipment, technical working committees, group meetings, rotation models and a strategic plan signed by all eight of the task forces’ fire chiefs and the state itself, which galvanized their commitment and leadership of the program.

California Charges Ahead
California was the first to purchase technical search devices in bulk, such as cameras and listening equipment, hydraulic concrete cutting equipment, low-pressure air bags and other expensive equipment for its task forces (more than a decade before the federal government would understand the tactical and financial benefit to having a standardized cache of equipment).

California was also the first to access surplus equipment and vehicles from the U.S. military, a practice that was also later instituted by FEMA for all the task forces. California was the first to understand the value of a program that allowed agencies to acquire forklifts, military shipping containers, truck trailers and other valuable equipment at a time when funds were scarce.

Further, the state was the first to develop operational working groups consisting of stakeholders and technical experts, another practice that was eventually adopted by FEMA. The working groups brought together dedicated and talented individuals from all eight state task forces to hammer out logistical support of the teams, search concepts, K-9 issues, communications infrastructure, training issues and overall management of the task forces. The committees became an incubator of new ideas, concepts and creative and coordinated developments, which would benefit the state and its teams for years to come.

Additional tasks and developments taken on by California included:
• Sponsoring and organizing team leader meetings to discuss common issues, challenges and frustrations associated with the development of a new program. The OES also organized critical meetings with sponsoring agency chiefs and became the advocate for all eight of the task force teams so they could speak with one voice when addressing FEMA on critical program issues and system development.
• Developing a model to ensure that all the state’s task forces responded in succession to take advantage of needed funding and to allow each team to gain experience. They also agreed upon a model that rotated Northern California and Southern California teams and preserved a minimum of four of the eight teams in if a national disaster occurred.
• Organizing meetings to develop a strategic plan long before FEMA had developed one for the program. Ghilarducci understood the relevance and importance of all of the state’s team leaders and sponsoring agency chiefs when it came to not only charting the course of the USAR program, but also underwriting and committing to the process.
• Creating a new categorization system for USAR under its FIRESCOPE Process (for more information of FIRESCOPE, visit www.firescope.org). The US&R Development Committee brought together leaders from all over the state, such as Manny Navarro out of Oakland who was involved with the Cypress Freeway collapse; John Brenner out of Sacramento City who was one of the first outside responders to arrive at the scene of the Oklahoma City Bombing; and Jim Hone out of Santa Monica who responded to the World Trade Center and who would become the committee’s unofficial leader.

The Great 8 Today
For all California’s success, it struggled with the funding, political support and creation of a state training center. Although a funding source was later secured, the total amount needed and commitment to the concept has always been elusive.

Almost 2 decades later, California’s US&R teams have interwoven roots based upon the early days of their successful cohesive development. The strength of the Great Eight has been their common bond in integration of the state’s system as well as its overall contribution to the NRS.


Harold Schapelhouman is a 29-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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