LA County Task Force Ready to Help in Chile

Pacoima - More than 70 members of one of the world's best trained urban search-and-rescue teams remained grounded in Southern California early today, waiting for air transport to take them to earthquake-ravaged Chile.

Formally known as the Los Angeles County Fire Department "Heavy Rescue Task Force," the team assembled for deployment to Chile comprises 74 members.

Team members scrambled Monday and were ready to fly to Chile, site of Saturday's 8.8-magnitude quake, according to the county Fire Department. But they were sent home because there was no plane -- a situation similar to what occurred after the Haiti earthquake -- and remained on standby this morning, said Los Angeles County Fire Supervisor Robert Diaz.

The Los Angeles County team includes firefighters, paramedic rescue specialists, emergency room doctors, structural engineers, heavy equipment specialists, search dogs and their handlers, hazardous materials technicians, and communications and logistics staff, according to county fire officials.

The team's supervisors received a request Monday morning from the U.S. Agency for International Development Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, and team members staged at a county facility on Osborne Street in Pacoima, said L.A. County Fire Inspector Matt Levesque.

The team members "were ready to go and all their equipment was ready," but there were no aircraft to take them to Chile, Levesque said.

"We sent the team members home," Levesque said. "They all have pagers. They can assemble in four hours. So right now we have a four a four- hour window. Any time we get deployed, we can be ready to go in a four-hour window."

The team has 55,000 pounds of pre-packaged tools and medical equipment to conduct around-the-clock search-and-rescue operations in response to domestic and international disasters, according to county fire officials.

Two Los Angeles County urban search-and-rescue teams deployed recently to Haiti, where a 7.0-magnitude quake struck Jan. 12.

The first L.A. County team on the ground helped locate and rescue people buried for days in collapsed buildings in the Caribbean island nation's capital of Port-au-Prince. The second team helped Haitians set up fire rescue squads to replace destroyed emergency services.

The first L.A. County team deployed to Haiti flew out of March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County.

Recent experience shows the "hurry-up-and-wait" timing of search-and-rescue deployments is subject to at least two key variables -- U.S. military air traffic planning and international diplomacy.

Sometimes planning works and sometimes it doesn't. Less than two months ago, the first Los Angeles County team deployed to Haiti caught a flight within 48 hours of the catastrophic temblor. But an Orange County team staged and waited days for a flight that never materialized.