Thursday, Feb. 9 was the 52nd anniversary of the Sylmar Earthquake, which killed more than 60 people, heavily damaged Olive View Medical Center and Veterans Hospital, partially collapsed freeway interchanges, and caused the near-total failure of Lower Van Norman Dam, forcing thousands of people downstream to evacuate.
So it was timely that on Thursday the Los Angeles City Fire Department held a Regional Technical Search Specialist Course event at the department’s “Disaster City” built behind Fire Station 88 in Sherman Oaks. At Disaster City, urban search and rescue task forces from fire departments throughout the region “learned the latest search operations using specialized equipment,” said Captain Erik Scott, L.A. City Fire Department.
“It went very well,” Scott said of the training for a half-dozen urban search and rescue task forces who tried out the simulated disaster zone. “It was a timely pre-planned training event that is very important in the light of the earthquake in Turkey and the 1971 quake in Sylmar.”
Four teams systematically searched the “disaster” area using specialized technical equipment such as snake-eye cameras that “you can put in the cracks in rubble … to look for people who might be in the rubble,” Scott said, and sensitive listening devices “that are magnetic and can be placed on walls to listen through them if someone is trapped inside.”
The Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD) Regional Technical Search Specialist Course, or “Disaster City,” brings regional disaster response Instructors and students together to practice and learn lifesaving search skills at the John Ruedy Memorial Training Center at Fire Station 88 in Sherman Oaks CA, Thursday, Feb 9. 2023. (Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
The Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD) Regional Technical Search Specialist Course, or “Disaster City,” brings regional disaster response Instructors and students together to practice and learn lifesaving search skills at the John Ruedy Memorial Training Center at Fire Station 88 in Sherman Oaks CA, Thursday, Feb 9. 2023. (Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Java dog with CA-TF-1 sniffs for simulated victims at the Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD) Regional Technical Search Specialist Course at “Disaster City” behind LA City Fire Station 88 in Sherman Oaks CA, Thursday, Feb 9. 2023. (Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
The Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD) Regional Technical Search Specialist Course, or “Disaster City,” brings regional disaster response Instructors and students together to practice and learn lifesaving search skills at the John Ruedy Memorial Training Center at Fire Station 88 in Sherman Oaks CA, Thursday, Feb 9. 2023. (Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
The Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD) Regional Technical Search Specialist Course, or “Disaster City,” brings regional disaster response Instructors and students together to practice and learn lifesaving search skills at the John Ruedy Memorial Training Center at Fire Station 88 in Sherman Oaks CA, Thursday, Feb 9. 2023. (Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Los Angeles City Fire Battalion Chief Craig White(R) talks during press conference at the Search Specialist Course, or “Disaster City” at John Ruedy Memorial Training Center at Fire Station 88 in Sherman Oaks CA, Thursday, Feb 9. 2023. (Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
To make it seem all too real, the teams could sometimes hear “a baby crying,” or “a person moaning from pain.”
The trainees used hand-held CPS to track their own movements, marking where the had already been so they could move on to areas not yet searched. “That information is sent back to the commanders in real time” where the incident commanders and decision-makers at Disaster City could update their strategic tactics, said Scott.
The recently renovated training site is formally known as the John Ruedy Memorial Training Center, and is a reminder, Scott noted, “that our firefighters are in a constant mode of training.”
