New Jersey’s Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue team is on standby after a series of natural disasters these past few weeks.
The team has recently been deployed out of state twice, and the team says that they are prepared to go out again.
Task Force 1 has been training at Joint Base Maguire-Dix-Lakehurst in between missions. News 12 New Jersey had a chance to see the training firsthand Thursday.
The training ground resembles a vast pile of rubble, similar to the ruins in Mexico City after a massive 7.1 earthquake this week.
“You want to do something. You want to be there but you have to wait,” says logistics specialist Mary Berghoefer.
The team is called to deadly disasters around the world. They had back-to-back deployments this summer in Texas after Hurricane Harvey and Florida after Hurricane Irma.
“We were home less than 24 hours [when] we deployed to Hurricane Irma,” says program manager Kevin Morrissey.
News 12 witnessed the team training rescue dogs to find victims in rubble and reporter Katie Kyros was able to try out a repurposed New Jersey Transit train car that keeps rescuers off balance so they can train for all environments.
The team says that they approach every disaster systematically, with search cameras and thermal imaging, even when confronted with trauma again and again.
“It’s overwhelming. It’s breathtaking. It’s surreal,” says Morrissey. “But…we have the best rescuers in the state.”
Whenever a Task Force 1 team is deployed to a disaster out of state, another team stays in state in case of emergency.
The federal government reimburses New Jersey for all deployments around the country.