Emergency first responders nationwide will gather Tuesday and Wednesday at the Brayton Fire Training Field in College Station to learn from the nation’s most active urban search and rescue team – Texas Task Force 1.
TX-TF1, an urban search and rescue team sponsored by Texas A&M Engineering Extension Services, will host a two-day helicopter search and rescue workshop that highlight’s its relationship with the Texas Army National Guard. TX-TF1 responds to a variety of search and rescue missions in Texas and around the U.S. every year. TX-TF1 spent its last deployment in Moore, Okla., in response to a tornado that devastated the city in May.
Brett Dickson, helicopter search and rescue program manager, said TX-TF1 is hosting the workshop to share information on how their civilian-military relationship with the National Guard works to enhance both organizations’ rescue capabilities.
“We put helicopter search and rescue technicians onboard national guard helicopters,” Dickson said. “They basically become part of the air crew and they go out for rescues, for recon and assist, for humanitarian work.”
Dickson said other state agencies were sending first responders to the TX-TF1 conference and would leave the conference with an understanding of how a civilian-military relationship between search and rescue organizations could work in their states.