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EW NEWS & OPINION 12 unit that runs road and swift water rescues, structure collapses, pulling people from confined spaces such as tanks, manholes, and sewers, as well as collapsed trenches," said Capt. Kaleda. "A lot of the people who work here on our Urban Search and Res- cue Team (USAR Team) are volun- teers for the International Response Team, which has taken them to Haiti and Japan," Capt. Kaleda said. The attack on the Pentagon also drew on the resources of the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. "We had 80 people there from our USAR Team. Initially we brought people out of the collapsed building, and when the fires were under con- trol, we began the job of shoring up the damaged structure," Capt. Kaleda said. In talking to the Captain, one has the feeling that all of this, the floods, fires, cutting up damaged cars to extract injured people, is or- dinary. There is no mention of the hazards, no mention of the long hours, the physical exhaustion, and the sometimes horrible conditions in which they work. For all of that we thank them. EW October 2011 The luncheon for the Station 21 crew included ham, turkey, and plenty of desserts ASCRS continued from page 11 A SC R S E x e c u t i v e D i r e c t o r D a v e K a r c h e r sp e a ks t o a m e m b e r o f t h e S t a t i o n 2 1 t e a m "When we go international, we do what the governmental authori- ties direct us to do. Following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan there was a high degree of organiza- tion, and we were assigned to an area about 150 miles north of the damaged reactors," said Capt. Kaleda. "They assigned us to coastal towns that were hit by the tsunami. We worked door-to-door, block-to- block to rescue any survivors and re- trieve bodies," he said. "Haiti was the Superbowl for Urban Search and Rescue Teams," he continued. "Everything we were ever trained to do, we did there. When we go into a disaster area, we bring our own food, water, and shelter, so that we can be self-sufficient for at least 10 days before we need to be resupplied. Unlike Japan, there was no organization as government ad- ministration had virtually collapsed after the earthquake, so initially we were operating on our own and began to search for people trapped in collapsed buildings all around the city of Port-au-Prince. Eventually the UN organizations came and supplied some coordination and direction of emergency responders who had ar- rived from all over the world."

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