Miami-Dade Response to Apartment Building Collapse in Barbados

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Miami-Dade Response to Apartment Building
Collapse in Barbados

• August 2007

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• From Alan Perry, Program Manager, FL-TF1
• On Sunday at approximately 1200hrs I received a
  phone call from Chief Lorenzo. He had received a
  call from the Barbados government advising of a
  partial collapse of a 2 story building into a
  cave. The Barbados government was asking for
  assistance in locating the missing occupants
  using our Fire Department's USR team. Chief
  Lorenzo went on to advise me that the County had
  approved their request for aid and what could we
  do to get help to them A.S.A.P.
• I advised Chief Lorenzo that we could try to put
  together a recon/search team with minimal
  equipment, at which time he stated he was
  en-route to HQ to help make this happen. I
  proceeded to HQ and started to call in personnel
  to help with all the necessary behind the scenes
  issues. The first critical issue of
  transportation was accomplished in short order.
• Chief Lorenzo made a few phone calls where he
  secured an aircraft at MIA that was scheduled to
  depart at 1600 hrs. That gave us 3 hrs to obtain
  a small recon/search team with passports,
  identify what equipment we would need and move it
  from Homestead to our POD. Once that was
  accomplished we needed to drive to MIA, load
  everything and be ready for wheels up.
• Our plan was to get 12-15 TF members out the door
  to identify if we were dealing with a rescue or
  recovery. The second part of the plan was to
  activate a 70 person team if we had any sign that
  we were still in rescue mode. Unfortunately,
  after we used our Live find Canine Teams who did
  not alert, our listening devices and our search
  camera that were negative, our Cadaver Canine
  Team that alerted us in 3 areas, we realized the
  probability of a live rescue was fading. During
  the next 24 hours, we helped the local government
  organizations with technical advice as they
  switched from a rescue mode to more likely a
  recovery one.
• All 5 of the missing were located and removed.
  Mr. Lorde, OFDA-LAC coordinator,
• stated that all were located exactly where our
  "sniffer dogs" indicated.

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From Mike Marks The search area was very steep
and the rubble was very loose. The canines had
to be confident and independent. The handlers
had to be able to direct their dogs away from
danger as well as into areas that needed to be
searched. Pictures from a rescuer's point of
view Two out of three apartments fell into a
cave that was approximately 50-70 feet deep. The
walls of the cave were very unstable with the
possibility of further collapse. We documented
movement of cracks that started off as only a few
inches across that grew to well over 1-2 feet.
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• Team at airport waiting to board aircraft

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• View of collapse from street

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• Yes it was a cave not a sinkhole

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• This fissure started out as 2 inches. Now it is
  over 2 feet

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• Same fissure as previous slide but from a
  different angle

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• Basket with searcher ready to be lowered into
  search area

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• K-9 Specialist Hilda Wood and Flash working to
  find live victims

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• Basket being lowered into search area

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• Tech Search crew out to look for voids. Basket is
  only safe haven

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• Tech Search with camera inspecting voids

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• Tech Search with camera inspecting voids

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• Human Remains K-9 Spirit working search area

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• 3 areas that Spirit had alerts. All victims were
  located here.

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• Problem, very big and deadly problem. This
  eventually collapsed as our Structural Specialist
  predicted. All rescue and recovery efforts had
  stopped well before this as there was way too
  much shifting in the rock formations.

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I have gone on over a dozen deployments traveling
around the world and this was the most
challenging deployment thus far. It really
proves that you need to train like it is the real
thing every time. You never know when the real
one will come. From walking out the door to go
to Home Depot on a Sunday afternoon to driving to
MIA to get on a plane heading to Barbados 4 hours
later. You never know. We all have the Big One
right here in our backyards. We should all keep
one eye on the Tropics but also the other eye on
the Ball. Hurricanes come with plenty of
warning, the rest will put you to the
test.--Alan Perry