# Online resource basic urban search and rescue training?



## mycrofft (Mar 31, 2012)

CERT generic training for search and rescue, especially urban/suburban, is sketchy; at least, I'm just not finding the supplemental materials we need. Anyone have URLs or other resources for training and running very basic ops?


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## Chimpie (Mar 31, 2012)

Are you looking for the initial training material or supplemental training and exercise ideas?

Chimpie

Sent using the Tapatalk app!


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## mycrofft (Apr 1, 2012)

Immediately, basics to make what we are doing work better and a source to show some people because they believe internet and written material older experienced or trained persons.

In the future, to create short seminars and exercises (two day classes) for folks already engaged in CERT . CERT/FEMA tells you how to sweep an essentially undamaged building, not how to canvas a neighborhood, what to stay out of, how to approach or simply keep track of the subject until help arrives. Aimed at mostly non-LE and none-FD amateur beginners.

Mentorship welcomed messaging through EMTLIFE.


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## mycrofft (Apr 2, 2012)

Several thousand man-hours later, no find and little news. Has to be a better way. MountainRescue, thanks for input.


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## Mountain Res-Q (Apr 2, 2012)

mycrofft said:


> Several thousand man-hours later, no find and little news. Has to be a better way. MountainRescue, thanks for input.



I'll send the Ground Search Theory and Tactics material tomorrow.  But I will tell you this, what is taught in CERT module 5 has no relevance to the type of activity you were engaged in this week.  Using volunteers with no training is a major issue for me from a Search Management standpoint.  However, I know of two CERT Units out east that added a dozen WSAR Modules onto the standard 9 Modules and formed up a VERY basic Ground Search component.  Something to consider, but ya, Module 5 (despite the generic SAR title) is classified as type 4 USAR by CalEMA, and is not by any means WSAR, although creating a type 4 Ground Search Team would be easy for an Urban CERT Unit, with a little help and the right training.


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## mycrofft (Apr 2, 2012)

This search was particularly "interesting" in that it included a sort of sketchy declining little town, a small prosperous bedroom and retirement community, the urban-rural interface area of a booming city, farmlands with houses a half mile apart and large level fields (private land) crisscrossed by canals, suburban house construction sites, large urban flood control canals, parks, suburban residential and business streets, and a river with tall/steep levies lined with riprap and punctuated by willows, bamboos thickets, pump houses, etc. Interface with locals ,and the private property versus "I wanna go in there" deal ,were recurrent. In the end, no injuries, everyone eventually got fed by ARC, but no substantial progress.
PS: Vollies included much "corporate knowledge" from former fire and law enforcement types.


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## mycrofft (Apr 3, 2012)

Outcome: last night the subject's remains were found ten feet from an area searched by divers the previous day. Current is about two miles an hour, very cold, and very turbid. The area has been used as a dock for nearly a century, so lots of old trash and debris and old riprap, so sonar was not of help. The dogs insisted she was there and couldn't find another path leading away, so the divers went back and painstakingly searched by braille.


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## Mountain Res-Q (Apr 3, 2012)

Lots of training material sent.

You know how to reach me for more...


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## onrope (Apr 26, 2012)

CERT training is so basic and watered down you really only need basic awareness classes. Most of us who are USAR techs took approximately 8 weeks of classes. Awareness level classes will give you the basics to not get killed. CERT has a place, try the FEMA website.


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## Mountain Res-Q (Apr 26, 2012)

Mycrofft's original inquiries were not really about Urban Search & Rescue, but Wilderness Search & Rescue conducted in or near urban areas... less "heavy rescue" and  "conducting building searchers post disaster"... and more "lost person behavior", "search tactics", and "investigations/interviewing techniques". 

This was in regard to a missing "at risk" youth his more urbanized area recently; a situation where CERT's "Search & Rescue" Module is non-relevant... no collapsed structures... no interior searches of lightly damaged buildings... no utility shut off... no triage... no proper lifting... no basic cribbing...

Personally, I believe that using CERT for this type of ground search in regions that do not have WSAR teams (like the mountain counties have) is perfectly acceptable, provided that additional WSAR training is provided to the members to include the things the CalEMA Mutual Aid Ground Searchers are required to know and be capable of...


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## mycrofft (Apr 26, 2012)

*2cents*

1. I was a little put off that we were being used as sweepers (going about after dark with flashlights covering a few square miles in the dark when there was a possibility that posting folks with radios handbills and sharp eyes at strategic points might have yielded something better....if we hadn't been called out 5 hours after the subject went missing. But we were not trained to manage that way, and we were also not trained stringently either how to do that, nor how to conduct searches around unfenced private and public properties (home construction sites, pastures, storm channel easements with large waterways borders by un-mowed wetlands studded with trash and a few homeless camps).

2. We were walking roads around croplands saying "What are we doing here?". We were walking areas which had already been canvassed, or had been alerted by reverse 911 true prior evening. (The latter was probably why we were not being constantly challenged).

Thanks for the training materials Mountain Res-Q. I'm hoping from this experience we generate some training and a closer affiliation with our local official SAR.


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## Mountain Res-Q (Apr 26, 2012)

mycrofft said:


> 1. I was a little put off that we were being used as sweepers (going about after dark with flashlights covering a few square miles in the dark when there was a possibility that posting folks with radios handbills and sharp eyes at strategic points might have yielded something better....if we hadn't been called out 5 hours after the subject went missing. But we were not trained to manage that way, and we were also not trained stringently either how to do that, nor how to conduct searches around unfenced private and public properties (home construction sites, pastures, storm channel easements with large waterways borders by un-mowed wetlands studded with trash and a few homeless camps).
> 
> 2. We were walking roads around croplands saying "What are we doing here?". We were walking areas which had already been canvassed, or had been alerted by reverse 911 true prior evening. (The latter was probably why we were not being constantly challenged).
> 
> Thanks for the training materials Mountain Res-Q. I'm hoping from this experience we generate some training and a closer affiliation with our local official SAR.



Ya, like I said before, it really depends on how the Search Managers profiled this person.  Based on what I knew about her, I have my own thoughts and ideas for planning and operations.  But the thing is, I was not there and didn't have the information that the managers actually there had.  Easy for me to monday morning quarterback.  I have to assume there was a reason for their utilization of CERT in the manner decided.

Had this been a call I was involved in at the command post CERT would not have been used.  It is too much of a liability to do so without them having the same level of training required of all entry level ground searchers in my county.  Search Managers in CA are taught to not use untrained volunteers... there are horror stories... for instance, mycrofft, look at Appendix A of the material I sent you.

Also, looking at the 7 crucial priorities mentioned in the first chapter in Section 3 of the material, remember the need to "assure unity of command".  When ground searchers, who usually have a fraction of the information that the Search Managers have, question their assignment, they are often less clue conscious and clue vigilant because they feel that they have been given a dummy assignment.  To paraphrase the material I send:  It is the searchers job to complete his/her assignment with 100% dedication; to do any less would be a disservice to the victim we seek to help.  Remember, the victim is always around the next rock!  

Also, look at the basic search management math I showed in the manual.  As a Search Manager, we are looking for a 90% retrospective POD for every assignment.  Calculating a teams POD is based on critical spacing or essential search width.  If team one reports a 75% POD, Managers are likely to place another team in the area, hoping that the next team also has a 75% POD, making the cumulative POD to nearly 94%.  This is especially true if the predictive POD was high.

On that note, if your CERT group is interested, I have been contemplating the idea of offering the SAR Probationary Academy I developed for my Team to other agencies.  Those of us interested in that idea have yet to work out all the kinks... but it was an idea we had...  the focus of the academy was on producing well rounded basic ground searchers meeting state and local standards for ground search, and providing the foundation for our members to move into the advanced stuff...  just an idea... keep it in mind...


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## Mountain Res-Q (Apr 26, 2012)

BTW, mycrofft, you go to that CalEMA / Teen CERT thing today?  I was gonna tune into the POD Cast this AM, but sleep was more important to me.


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