During a 48-hour period in August 2016, certain areas in Louisiana received up to 22 inches of rain. In low-lying areas and areas near bodies of water, this sudden, intense rainfall resulted in flooding that local responders had never seen before, as hundreds of square miles and more than 100,000 houses were flooded.
The Louisiana State Fire Marshal’s Office (LASFMO) activated all of the state's urban search and rescue (USAR) assets to assist with search and rescue and search and recovery. The search and rescue efforts were conducted by individual task forces. The search and recovery efforts were organized by combining the individual task forces and regional response teams into one large state asset.
I was tasked as incident commander (IC) for the search and recovery effort, and the New Orleans Fire Department assigned its Incident Management Team to assist in controlling the mission. Together we produced an incident action plan (IAP) to provide our working teams with general strategic guidance and a wealth of information about communications, medical care, safety, etc. We also stood ready to provide any logistical support necessary to complete the mission, as well as to document the incident as completely as possible.
On Aug. 16, our USAR management team met with Chief James Wascom, the IC of the searches we would be supporting in Livingston Parish, and Robert Campbell, the operations section chief, to plan the next day’s operation. We got an idea of expected logistical and operational procedures, and were provided with the hosting agency's priorities during the briefing.
On Aug. 17 and 18, our teams searched Livingston Parish, finding one victim who had been swept away by floodwaters while walking his dog. We searched dozens of square miles and thousands of structures to find that one victim. We have been to several tornado, hurricane and flood events, none of which had moved at this fast a pace. Most of our searches have been near glacial in pace, but for this search there were two mitigating circumstances that had our search teams moving along at a fairly rapid clip:
- The water had moved in and out of the structures quickly, rarely damaging the structure itself and not leaving a pile of mud and rubble that would slow searchers down.
- No “stay away” order had been issued, and homeowners were back at their houses by the time many of the search teams arrived, providing information that increased the pace of the search.
We were notified on the afternoon of Aug. 17 that Texas Task Force 1 (TX TF-1), a FEMA Type I USAR Task Force, would be arriving the next evening to assist in our efforts. We would also be getting FEMA’s Red Incident Support Team (IST) to help manage the federal asset.
I have often said in support of joint training that we don’t want to be shaking hands for the first time on the rubble pile. Here’s where that joint training comes in handy. When we were tasked with forming a USAR team back in 2004, the first place we went was to our colleagues in Texas. I have been able to build an excellent working relationship with Jeff Saunders, the USAR program manager for Texas, and he has graciously invited us to several of his full-scale exercises. I called Saunders as soon as we heard that his team was coming and we kept the information flowing until they arrived. He also put me in touch with representatives from the IST before it arrived. When we met our Texas counterparts for the first time, the situation was greatly eased by the fact that both elements found friendly faces on the other team. Our operational folks were also seeing friendly TX TF-1 faces that they had met while training together, so common working techniques were easily implemented.
We decided to co-locate our IST and IMT and publish one IAP between us. This was a wise decision. Our initial IAPs were well done and complete enough to fulfill their purposes. When the Red IST moved in and started assisting us in putting out the next operational period’s IAP, we ramped up our product by 1,000 percent. The IST members gave their advice graciously and only when asked. They repeatedly made it clear that they were there to assist us—not the other way around. A telling comment made during our operations over the next three days was, “We Federales aren’t smarter than anyone else; we just have more experience.” That experience was used to increase the knowledge, skills and abilities of our IMT members, including the IC. We were exposed to technologies that we never dreamed existed. We were shown practical procedures that eased the mechanism by which we improved our subsequent IAPs. It was such a great learning experience that we decided to meld our people and the TX TF-1 folks for a day to mirror our educational process out in the operational areas.
Lessons learned
To paraphrase a statement heard often, “Train early, train often.” A team that has trained together regularly knows itself. Leadership is confident that when they lay out the objectives at the beginning of the day’s operational period, those objectives will be accomplished.
Be proactive, not reactive. Louisiana State Fire Marshal Butch Browning and his staff realized the potential magnitude of the event long before it occurred and mobilized rescue and recovery resources and had them in place as the flood waters rose. There could have been serious deployment issues had he waited to do so.
Make sure your administration supports your operation. We all worked hard to ensure that our IAPs were not hamstringing the folks out in the field while they did provide the ground-pounders with general direction and information.
Keep yourself focused on the field. When we were nearing the close of the operation, the state’s USAR coordinator, Deputy Chief Robert Wolfe, wanted to take a helicopter ride over the area to get a good look. I felt that a phone call or two to some parish emergency managers would do the trick a bit cheaper and faster. We weren’t up in the air five minutes when I realized Chief Wolfe was right. You have to get out of that noisy box we call the incident command post occasionally and get your arms around the vastness of the operation you are conducting. As IC, you may not be able to do it yourself, but you should get a representative you trust to do it.
Lastly, the federal folks bring a plethora of pluses to any operation’s table. If you don’t take the chance to dine at that table, you are making a grave mistake.
IAPs available
If anyone would like a scrubbed copy (no contact numbers, etc.) of one of the IAPs we produced, please contact me at [email protected] and I will gladly provide you with one.
RUEL DOUVILLIER spent 20 years in the U.S. Army, serving as a medic, infantryman and paratrooper. He served five years as a paramedic with New Orleans, LA, Emergency Medical Services and 14 years with the New Orleans Fire Department, most of that time with heavy technical rescue squads. Douvillier has also served with private ambulance services and volunteer and combination fire departments and has extensive experience as an instructor. He is presently the Task Force Leader of the Louisiana Task Force One, the state and regional USAR team, and the operations manager for SAR Specialists, an emergency response training company.
