Earthquake in Hait

My short on Indiana Task Force 1 was included in USA Today's online presentation. Here is the link to the story.

In Indiana:

Indy rescue unit prepares to help

Indiana Task Force One -- a search and rescue team of firefighters, medics, doctors and others -- is on standby today in case the group's building-search skills are called upon in Haiti.

The team's coordinator, Indianapolis Fire Department Battalion Chief William Brown, said by phone today from New Mexico that he's reached out to key planners on the Indiana team to make sure their passports are up to date and discuss other logistics that would be involved with an international rescue effort.

Task Force One, based at Indianapolis International Airport, is one of 28 teams linked to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Its 70-member team is filled with experts from local fire departments who can locate and extract people who are trapped within a collapsed structure caused by a natural disaster or act of terrorism. The team also has 12 search dogs.

Brown said a team in Virginia and one in California may be deployed to Haiti because of specific training it has in international response efforts. But others could be called in.

"We're paying attention. We're staying fluid," Brown said.

The Indiana Task Force, which was created about 20 years ago, last deployed in summer 2008 to the Gulf Coast and eastern Texas, where they spent three weeks assisting victims in the aftermath of hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The team also looked for victims in the flooded-out neighborhoods of Biloxi, Miss., after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and was one of the first teams to be activated after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks in 2001.

-- By Tom Spalding, IndyStar.com

Icy hydrants

I was able to get a leg up on the competition after a fire devastated a restaurant, reporting that not only could Indianapolis firefighters not find a usable hydrant, but that there was no guarantee that any fire hydrant in the city was guaranteed operable. Here is the fire hydrant story.