VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The challenges for a rescue mission like the high-rise collapse in Florida are huge, even for trained crews. Emergency crews do have plans in place to help locate, rescue, and recover missing persons.
FEMA's Urban Search and Rescue Team, Virginia Task Force 2, is stationed in Virginia Beach.
“We’re just going to stabilize the building. So we’ll put either wood or aluminum shoring in place to support the building while our guys and our gals go and do their searches and rescues," said Jon Rigolo.
Rigolo is a captain for the Virginia Beach Fire Department.
“If we had a big building collapse like that here in the city or in any one of the local cities, we have a lot of resources available immediately and a log of equipment available," said Rigolo.
Rigolo is also a task force leader for Virginia Task Force 2.
“So Virginia Task Force 2 is one of the 28 urban search and rescue teams are supported by the federal government and they are located throughout the United States," said Rigolo.
Rigolo explained his teams have been deployed to major events like the rescues in Haiti and responded to the Pentagon on 9/11.
Rigolo said in a building collapse like the one in Florida, first responders are using canines and engineers to locate and rescue missing persons.
“These engineers will tell us how we stabilize this building, what's safe and what's not safe, and help us safely navigate through this very dangerous [building]. It could collapse again in a secondary collapsed structure to rescue folks that might be trapped," said Rigolo.
On Thursday evening, Task Force 2 was put on standby to assist in the efforts in Florida.