Earlier this week, two NYPD Canine Teams were dispatched to help with Washington state mudslide recovery efforts. According to the NYPD, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security "activated part of New York Task Force 1 (NY-TF1), a search and rescue team made up of the most highly trained first responders in the nation." The mudslide, which covered a square mile, has claimed at least 30 lives and many are still missing.
The two teams were Detective Patrick Nee and his partner, Hondo, a six-year-old German Shepard, and Police Officer Benjamin Colecchia and his partner, Timoshenko, a three-year-old German Shepard. Timoshenko is named after slain police officer Russel Timoshenko, who was killed during a 2007 Brooklyn traffic stop.
According to the NYPD, "FEMA established the National Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Response System in 1989 as a framework for structuring local emergency services personnel into integrated disaster response task forces. New York Task Force 1 is staffed by elite members of the NYPD, FDNY, and OEM, and includes rescue specialists, emergency physicians, paramedics, structural engineers, hazardous materials technicians and K-9 specialists."
There are 28 such national task force teams, who are ready for situations like earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, aircraft accidents, hazardous materials spills and catastrophic structure collapses. NY Task Force 1 has been previously deployed to help with search and rescue for the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, hurricanes Ike, Gustav, Katrina, and the Oklahoma City bombing.
