By Norm Rooker

It seems like each year we are seeing more and bigger flooding around the world and across the United States. The recent dramatic television coverage of the flooding, devastation and rescue efforts in Mozambique are but the most recent example of this.

Looking closer to home, roughly 200 Americans die each year as a result of flash flooding and approximately 10 percent of those drownings are of would-be rescuers. The National Fire Protection Association states that a firefighter is four times more likely to die in a swiftwater rescue situation than while battling a fire.

Last February 16th, the Congressional Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigation and Emergency Management met as the result of considerable behind-the-scenes lobbying by numerous organizations and individuals such as the U.S. Life Saving Association (www.usla.org), Reps. Constance Morella of Maryland and Brian Bilbary of California, Chief Steve Miller of the Cabin John, Md., Fire Dept. and private citizen Nancy Rigg.

Congressman Bilbary is a former San Diego County Lifeguard and has trained with the San Diego Lifeguard River Rescue Team that was formed in 1978 to address the unique rescue aspects and challenges of their inland waterways flood problems. The San Diego Lifeguard Service was also one of the first in California to propose and champion the flood- and swiftwater-rescue task force concept for the State of California.

Nancy Rigg has also been tirelessly championing the cause of organized swiftwater rescue teams and regional task forces since her fiancé, Earl Higgins, lost his life in 1980 when he jumped into a Los Angeles flood channel in an attempt to rescue a child being swept downstream in fast-moving water. Nancy watched helplessly from the banks of the flood channel as the child and her fiancé disappeared out of her life forever.

Nancy discovered that there was no coordinated swiftwater rescue training, SOPS or even a common means of communications among the various emergency service providers in the Los Angeles area. Initially emergency managers ignored her calls for a coordinated effort and stated that her tragedy was regrettable but a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

That is, until the next year when 13-year-old Adman Bishoff was lost in a flood channel. This time his plight, captured by news cameras, raised the awareness of the county governments and the general public to the problem. Nancy worked tirelessly with numerous emergency responders to help get the L.A. City and County swiftwater rescue task force formed.

Nancy Rigg’s efforts and the story of the L.A. County Swiftwater Rescue Team became the subject of a documentary entitled Swiftwater Rescue that aired March 1st and 4th on the Discovery Channel. An advanced preview copy of Swiftwater Rescue was shown to the Congressional subcommittee. (The Discovery Channel will air Swiftwater Rescue several more times, so keep an eye out for it in your local listings. Swiftwater Rescue will also, no doubt, become available for purchase on the Discovery Channel’s web site, www.discovery.com , and through its chain of stores.)

Bruce Baughman, director of the Operations and Planning Division of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, testified that "...Flooding and its associated hazards make up a large percentage of all the disasters FEMA responds to each year." However, when Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Tillie Fowler asked Baughman to describe FEMA’s present water rescue capabilities, he replied that FEMA had none.

Congresswoman Fowler presented a copy of a 1993 letter from FEMA administrator James Lee Witt to Nancy Rigg promising to turn the attention of FEMA to developing flood rescue capabilities. Baughman observed that no actions had been taken by FEMA since then.

However, Baughman stated that, rather than create Federal Swiftwater Rescue Task Forces along the USAR task force model, which did not work out so well when a USAR team was deployed to a North Carolina flood situation recently, FEMA would work to help states identify, catalog and coordinate swiftwater rescue resources within their jurisdictions.

"One element that is lacking at the present time is a uniform typing of swiftwater rescue resources, which would provide state and local emergency management officials in need of assistance with sound bases for their requests," Baughman said. "The State of California has developed a draft typing scheme for such resources, which includes water rescue companies, crews, and teams that conform to incident command system standards. This type of scheme, taking into account geographic variations in the nature of swiftwater missions throughout the United States, should be adopted at the national level."

Baughman went on to outline a series of steps FEMA proposes including development of minimum standards of training and capabilities of flood rescue personnel, based on the current California model. FEMA also proposes to assess the existence of currently available resources and develop a plan for deployment of those resources in a timely manner. Towards this end, he suggested that FEMA assign several staffers to work on this issue and estimated FEMA’s initial costs for this program at $500,000.

Nancy Rigg expressed that this could not come soon enough. It was her opinion that many of the recent deaths in Hurricane Floyd could have been avoided had authorities predeployed flood rescue teams in areas expected to be impacted.

The U.S. Department of State has already followed up on this concept. Through its Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), the State Department made a first-ever request for a combination Humanitarian Aid and Flood Rescue Team to be deployed to the African nation of Mozambique. Tasked with this assignment was the Miami-Metro Dade Florida USAR Task Force, one of 28 FEMA-USAR task forces and three OFDA task forces.

On Wednesday, March 1, a task force of 16 paramedics, doctors and swiftwater rescue technicians took off for the African nation. They were followed later in the day by two more members with the team’s equipment cache, including 3 IRB's (Inflatable Rescue Boats). As this article is being written, the Miami Operations Center reports that the IRB's haven’t been deployed yet, as the flood waters are receding, but they were expecting another major storm in the mountains and were being relocated to a likely flood location — a concept that we will soon be seeing much more of locally, I hope.

(For an excellent article on the Mozambique Floods, rescue, recovery situation and problems, Click Here)

And speaking of water rescue and videos, two others come to mind. By now, everyone is familiar with the concept of cold-water drowning and resuscitation. This concept says that if a person drowns in cold-enough water, under the right circumstances, he stands a fairly good chance of being successfully resuscitated up to an hour after drowning.

On Tuesday, February 29, and repeated again on Friday, March 3, The Learning Channel (TLC), aired a special on their Scientific America Series entitled Mysteries of Cold Water Survival. The documentary presented the cases of three, cold-water near-drowning patients, starting with the event and rescue. Each story then progresses through to the medical resuscitation, hospitalization, rehab and long-term follow-up. What each of the three survivors had in common were personality, learning and behavioral changes which were traced to changes in the brain secondary to the drowning event.

Mysteries of Cold Water Survival featured multiple interviews with the victims, their families, their rescuers and assorted health care providers. A number of medical and scientific complexities surrounding cold-water drowning were broken down and concisely explained by Dr. Anne Dickison, clinical associate professor of anesthesiology and pediatrics for the University of Florida College of Medicine and a member of the Wilderness Medical Society’s Board of Directors and past chairman of the National Association of Search and Rescue’s Medical Advisory Committee (www.nasar.org).

All in all, Mysteries of Cold Water Survival presents a fascinating new look at this material and takes it much further than any other documentary on this phenomenon ever has before. Well worth keeping an eye out for in your local listings (www.discovery.com).

Lastly, a swiftwater rescue video, Ready for the Storm, is available for a minimum donation of $15 to NASAR’s Higgins and Langley Memorial Awards in Swiftwater Rescue. The H&L Award was developed by the National Association for Search And Rescue’s Swiftwater Rescue Committee in 1993. Named after Nancy Rigg’s fiancé Earl Higgins and Los Angeles County Fire Department Flight Paramedic Jeff Langley, who was instrumental in developing L.A. County’s Swiftwater task force and who lost his life in a tragic helicopter accident, the H&L Award is the top award in this area of special rescue.

Ready for the Storm is a three-and-a-half minute, emotionally charged video that captures the essence of swiftwater rescue and graphically illustrates the reasons every agency with flood and swiftwater rescue needs to be ready for the storm — much like our OFDA swiftwater task force in Mozambique.

Scottish singer-composer Dougie MacLean graciously allowed his music by the same name to be used for this video to help educate the public, fellow rescuers, and chief officers about the power of moving water and how trying these rescues can be.

For more information on Ready for the Storm visit swiftwater rescue guru Slim Ray’s web site (www.cfspress.com) and go down to the bottom of the page and select the Higgins and Langley Memorial Award banner. (While you’re there, check out Slim’s many books and articles on swiftwater rescue.)

You can also order Ready for the Storm directly by mailing your donation of $15 or more to the NASAR Higgins and Langley Memorial Awards Fund. Mail your check and mailing information to CFS Press, 68 Finalee Ave., Asheville, NC 28803.

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