Navy helps prepare site
Urban Search and Rescue Team Trains at Lakehurst Base

Oct 21, 2003 - Each year, all the specialty components that comprise New Jersey’s Urban Search and Rescue Team, New Jersey Task Force-1 (NJTF-1), based at Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst, participate in a realistic 72 hour non-stop disaster search and rescue training exercise. 180 members of NJTF-1 will be joined by members of the NJ Operating Engineers Local #825 for this year’s exercise, which is scheduled to begin at 6:00 a.m. Wednesday, Oct 22nd.

Once assembled at their cavernous staging and response center located in a former airship hangar, NJTF-1 will deploy to their outdoor training site and debris field also located at NAES Lakehurst. There they will establish a tent city base camp and begin rescue and recovery operations at a simulated disaster scene.

Surveillance teams will assess damage and identify likely sites for survivors. They will call for searches in some areas, rescues in others and structural stabilizing in others. Specialty teams will deploy as directed by established grid squares and via satellite global positioning system determined coordinates. Concurrently, communications, medical and logistic teams will conduct operations
Search and rescue dog teams will search for human volunteers hidden in the debris. Others will look for surface victims. Teams with specialized video and lighting equipment will probe small openings and illuminate caverns to find images of “injured” victims. Other teams will assess and shore up large slabs of concrete to enable rescuers to crawl below.

Throughout the exercise, two 90-person teams will work 12-hour rotating shifts. Between scenarios both the site and victims will be reset.

Leading up to the exercise concrete slabs, twisted structural steel, pipes and other debris was repositioned into a new collapsed building configuration by Task Force One members, one of whom is a Rigger in the Navy Lakehurst Public Works Department. Working hand-in-hand with State Agencies such as NJTF-1, along with other Department of Defense, Federal and local tenants, NAES Lakehurst has established itself as a model installation for joint activities among Department of Defense facilities.