FEMA team ready to move in Frances' wake
By Mike Ahlers
CNN
Editor's Note: CNN's Jeanne Meserve and Mike Ahlers are with a federal rescue team that is preparing to deal with the effects of Hurricane Frances.
Jacksonville, Florida (CNN) -- Mark Piland is preparing for what he calls, even before the fact, a "camp out gone bad."
Immediately after Hurricane Frances blows across Florida, Piland will lead 70 men and women, mostly from Virginia, to some of the hardest-hit areas. Once there, they will pitch tents, roll out sleeping bags and get about the business of saving lives.
Piland and colleague Steve Cover are leaders of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Virginia Task Force II -- a multidisciplinary group of people well-schooled in finding and rescuing people from wind-torn houses, collapsed trailer homes and demolished buildings.
Together with another federal task force from Memphis, Tennessee, Piland's group will be at the beck and call of local authorities, who may be overwhelmed by damage caused by Frances.
The two federal teams are spending Saturday night at Jacksonville Naval Air Station and expect to be deployed early Sunday. Then they'll begin their strange camp out.
Strange because though they have all the accoutrements of a holiday nature trip -- tents, cots, food and bug repellent -- they may face less-than-hospitable conditions. Start with teetering structures, broken gas mains and downed power lines. Add Florida's notorious heat and humidity and -- because this storm may hang around a while -- floodwaters. And, oh yeah, throw in spiders, snakes, frightened dogs and angry, displaced alligators.
Like all urban search-and-rescue teams, this one is self-sufficient. It has all the equipment it needs to operate for 72 hours. The members want to help out, not drain resources that will likely be strained to the breaking point.
The team has its own gear, its own fuel, even its own doctor and medics, in case one of its 70 members is injured or falls ill.
Right now -- 7 p.m. Saturday -- all it lacks is a mission. The mission will probably come in a phone call Sunday morning, when a local or state government asks for help.
In the meantime, the FEMA team is not in a "hurry up and wait" world. It's more like a "hurry up and meet" world. Most of the task force members spend the day in meetings or taking refresher courses of the life-saving skills they may call on in the next few days.
Piland and Cover say it's important to keep everyone busy in the hours before they are deployed. They say the rescuers are spring-loaded for the job, and that the stress of idle hours spent anticipating the action would be harmful.
So the FEMA teams meet, plan, meet, practice, meet and rehearse. And meet. There are a million logistical details to attend to, both large and small.
During a conference call, folks at FEMA warn them that gas stations are closed in central Florida, so gasoline and diesel fuel will be hard to come by.
Four dog handlers spend the day tending to the search dogs.
And during a briefing led by structural engineers, the rescuers get a refresher course in the signs that surveillance teams will spray-paint on collapsed homes to designate whether someone may be trapped inside.
A "V" will indicate that a canine team has detected a possible victim.
A circled "V" will mean someone has confirmed the presence of a victim.
A circled "V" with a slash will indicate a dead victim. And a circled "V" with an X will indicate the victim has been removed.
But with Hurricane Frances still over the Atlantic, the spray paint is stowed. The rescuers drill, the dogs lounge and everyone awaits for whatever Sunday will bring.
