Several of our task force team members participated in a deployment drill sponsored by OSFM in Jacksonville, NC. There were over 250 participants and instructors there! Members from NCTF-4, NCTF-5, NCTF-7, NCTF-10, NCTF-11 and Jacksonville Fire Department attended. The Onslow Inn, a two-story hotel, was collapsed in preparation for the exercise. Teams arrived at the scene on Friday morning, 3 June, and set up as if it were an actual USAR deployment. Participants were split into several task groups - some working the 8a - 8p shift and the others working the 8p - 8a shift. They had to put all of their structural collapse rescue skills to work, including breaching/breaking concrete, shoring, heavy lifting, and more, to locate and extract victims (which were full-sized rescue dummies) from the wreckage.

Teams set up base camp nearby where members slept in tents (or tried to, in the oppressive heat and humidity) and had only bare-bones comfort facilities.

Click the thumbnails to view a larger photo in a separate browser window. These photos were provided by Mike Beasley and Jason Nesbit.

Several of our team members went to the site a day early to assist with final preparations for the drill.		Ol' faithful
All the comforts of home. Ok, maybe not.	Crews had a lot of work to do clearing debris before they could even get to the structure.	Nice and unstable.
Rescue Randy's in there somewhere!	No doubt these were the most popular folks throughout the entire drill! (American Red Cross)
	Working the night shift
Canine teams helped to locate the victims	Quite the impressive cache of equipment!
A little toasty...	A little dirty...	"Everything ok down there?"
Our teams rescued the first victims fairly quickly	Teams breached that square hole in the center of the photo to gain access to what was the first floor.	Crews shored or cribbed unstable areas prior to making entry
Marking the location of a victim
Smile, Fred, you're on candid camera!	Apex's collapse trailer
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