by David Ball
Staff Writer
Jacksonville Fire and Rescue District Chief Dick Lundy remembered he was brushing his teeth when the call came in shortly after 5:30 a.m. Thursday.
What he remembered more was the sound of the dispatcher’s voice.
“She was very matter-of-fact. You could tell in her voice that she had good information that something had happened,” he said. “Then, I heard, ‘building collapse. Berkman Plaza two.’”
Lundy was based at the corner of Duval and Jefferson streets at Station No. 4, which along with Station No. 13 in San Marco houses Jacksonville’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) teams. About 125 fire and rescue personnel stationed throughout the city serve as part of the USAR team, although a core group are housed at those two stations along with millions of dollars in specially designed USAR equipment.
The teams are based at the stations to provide quick access to other areas of town. Also, Downtown is where the risks are greater with high-rises, constant construction and a concentration of people.
That assertion was proven true on Thursday, when the six-story parking garage under construction at Berkman Plaza II collapsed, killing one man and injuring nearly two-dozen others.
By all accounts, the disaster was the worst of its kind the USAR team has ever responded to in Jacksonville. Fortunately, the team, a state task force, has honed its skills responding to other disasters, such as hurricanes Katrina and Wilma.
The collapse was also a test of the City’s emergency operations coordination and implementation of a unified command system. Chief Lorin Mock, head of the emergency preparedness division, said the City’s quick and effective response, and the fact that not one emergency responder was injured, shows the value of this specialized core of rescuers.
“The USAR team is a vision that came out of the tragedy of 9-11 into what we have today,” said Mock. “I think from the Jacksonville perspective, what people here saw is what has been replicated in a number of hurricane-related incidents since 2004.”
Lundy remembered trips to Mississippi in the wake of Katrina, even calling shots during several points of the rescue as incident commander. On Thursday, Lundy was forced back into that role as his team was one of the first to arrive at “the pile.”
“Outside there was a guy bloodied on the sidewalk, the foreman saying I got 22 people in this accident,” said Lundy, who served as incident commander for the first hours of the response and rescue. “It’s dark, and I’m trying to take all this in and figure out what we’re going to do. I was looking at a six-story building that is now 10-feet tall.
“But you just revert back to your training,” he continued. “We’ve all used this equipment in training, but maybe not to this magnitude. To see it all come together and our training pay off was great.”
Cargo trucks that resemble mini tractor-trailers are needed to haul that specialized equipment, including chain saws and drills meant to cut through concrete like butter and the familiar jaws-of-life to extract people from collapsed areas.
The trucks were nearly emptied during the height of the response, with firefighters taking quick breaks between tours on the pile.
“The call comes in first thing in the morning, and within two minutes you are going to be on scene and have people looking to you to make quick decision,” said USAR team member Lt. Matt Cipriani.
“After the initial 20-plus people were transported out, you slow down,” he added. “Now, what we have is a straight-forward rescue mission.”
Two pieces of equipment that probably saw the most use were the steel rebar cutters, as rescuers cut their way through the twisted metal and quickly hardening concrete.
A listening device was also brought in from a USAR team in Tampa. Although, it was unfortunately the firefighters own sense of smell that helped pinpoint deceased Willie Edwards III’s body early Saturday morning, said Lundy.
“When you looked at the collapse, the rubble, it’s a miracle nobody else was seriously hurt,” said Lundy. “I’m sure there are things that could be tweaked, but I really think it was almost flawless.”
While the response showed the importance of the USAR team in Jacksonville, Lundy and his crew said they are anxiously awaiting an important addition to Station No. 4 — a new building to house the expensive USAR trucks and equipment.
“Our administrators have been great about helping us,” said Lundy, who now watches his heavy rescue vehicle park on the street next the old station. “It will be great to get these things out of the sun and the rain if we want to work on them or access the equipment.”