Media Advisory: Canada Task Force 2 Takes Part in National Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Exercise

  October 15, 2010 03:18 PM  Category:  Fire <http://newsroom.calgary.ca/pr/calgary/news.aspx?ncid=17192>                       
 
October 15, 2010 – Calgary, AB - Canada Task Force 2 (CAN-TF2), a national heavy urban search and rescue team is traveling to Ottawa to participate in a Canada-wide mock disaster exercise.
 
The purpose of the federally funded exercise is to unite national heavy urban search and rescue teams from across the nation and demonstrate the teams’ capabilities in being self-sustained disaster response teams.
 
“This is a wonderful opportunity for the national HUSAR (Heavy Urban Search and Rescue) program to participate in a full-scale disaster exercise,” says Coby Duerr, CAN-TF2 Task Force Leader, “allowing us to exercise Canada’s ability to respond to large scale structural collapses.”
 
The exercise takes place in Ottawa, from October 14 to 17 and will have more than 100 Heavy Urban Search and Rescue personnel from across Canada attending the exercise with 28 of the volunteers from Alberta including physicians, structural engineers and logistics specialists, technical rescue and technical search experts as well as disaster search dogs.
 
The CAN-TF2 team is made up of Calgary professionals who volunteer their time and bring forth their expertise to be a part of the team.
 
CAN-TF2 is one of five heavy urban search and rescue teams found in Canada and is a partnership between City of Calgary, Public Safety Canada, Alberta Emergency Management Agency, Alberta Health Services and numerous other agencies throughout Alberta.
 
Residing in the City of Calgary under the direction of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency, CAN-TF2 is one of five dynamic teams complementing Canada's emergency response initiative in Urban Search and Rescue. Separately or in unison, these task force teams are capable of integrating state of the art technical equipment and rescue gear with extraordinarily diverse professional skill-sets to handle demanding rescue situations.
 
The mandate of the Task Force is to locate, extricate and facilitate immediate medical care to individuals affected by natural or human-caused disasters.
 
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