Texas Task Force 1 Demobilized from Haiti Deployment

Texas Task Force 1 (TX-TF1) and all other US teams currently on standby have been demobilized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and will not deploy to Haiti. The United Nations mission in Haiti has declared that the search and rescue teams in the country are sufficient. The task force had been on standby in Houston since the morning of January 14th.

The TX-TF1 team which was activated for this deployment was a Type I Urban Search and Rescue Team which is comprised of 80 personnel, 4 search and rescue canines, search and technical rescue personnel, physicians, paramedics, structural engineers, other support personnel, and approximately 50 tons of rescue equipment and supplies. The team is self-sustaining for 14 days and deployable by aircraft to anywhere within 4 hours of activation. The task force has also deployed nationally over 70 times, to include the Shuttle Columbia disaster, the World Trade Center, Hurricanes Katrina and Ike.

Since 1998, TX-TF1 has used their unique facilities at Disaster City® as its primary training and testing area for large scale incidents. Located in College Station, Texas, this 52-acre mock city, includes numerous full-scale collapsed buildings and has trained search and rescue teams from across the United States, Europe, Asia and South America.