Hazmat Team Passes Disaster 'Typing' Test with Flying Colors

It had to be the most important typing test in County history; but it didn’t have anything to do with keyboards.

This “typing” test was all about disaster preparedness. And the members of the County Department of Environmental Health’s Hazardous Incident Response Team (HIRT) passed it with flying colors.

This last summer, HIRT — the region’s 24/7 emergency response team comprised of County DEH and City of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department members —earned a coveted “Tier One Typing” certification, the highest level possible, from the California Office of Emergency Services.

The certification means that the San Diego County region has proved it has the top-rated “type” of resources, tools, personnel, training and capability to handle any hazardous disaster — even if it involves weapons of mass destruction: chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and/or high-yield explosives.

“It means that the public is better protected,” David Cammall, a supervising environmental health specialist and member of the HIRT team, said simply.

Typing, Cammall said, is the terminology that California’s Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS) uses to grade the levels of emergency situations and the tools, resources, equipment and training that would be needed to respond to them.

Incidents and response capabilities are ranked into three types: 1, 2 and 3. Type 1 incidents are the most complicated and potentially dangerous. Type 1 tools, equipment and training are the most sophisticated, advanced or which have the highest performance capability.

The idea behind typing is that when emergency responders coordinate their efforts they know exactly how complex the incident is that they’re responding to and exactly how sophisticated their response capabilities should be.

For example, a Type 3 hazardous incident would require emergency responders to be able to handle, clean and control “known” hazardous industrial chemicals. A Type 2 incident would require handling known chemicals and unknown industrial chemicals. And a Type 1 incident not only requires the ability to handle known and unknown chemicals, but also weapons of mass destruction — chemical, biological, radiological or even high-yield explosives.

To handle a Type 1 incident responders have to have, among other things, the special equipment and training to conduct field testing, monitor the air quality, capture and collect evidence, detect and monitor alpha, beta and gamma radiation, handle decontamination, to have self-contained protective suits with in-suit communications and breathing systems that can fend off biological and chemical vapors, and to have personnel and tools to conduct plume air modeling and map overlays.

Those are the things that are required of a Tier One Type team. With certification, the combined County-City team becomes one of just 29 certified as “Tier One” level in the state; there are only 58 teams in California that have been certified  at any of the three levels.

Cammall said the combined HIRT/San Diego Fire team was already close to qualifying for the state OES Tier 1 certification before the City filed the application last year.

The joint County/City HIRT team was created back in 1986 and is unusual among such teams in that it combines hazardous materials experts from agencies from two separate local governments: the County’s Environmental Health Department and the City of San Diego’s Fire-Rescue Department. They’ve been combining their expertise ever since to answer hazardous material emergencies.

The certification was rigorous, Cammall said, but well worth it. Not only does it show that the region has the expertise and training to protect the region’s residents, the certification will make it easier for the team to win grants to buy new equipment and training.

It also means the team could be called upon to help people in other parts of state or the country if necessary.

“Think of the urban search and rescue teams that have been used in disasters,” Cammall said, “when things like the Oklahoma City bombing or the (9/11) World Trade Center happen, urban search and rescue teams were called on to come and help. This could be the same way.”

Members of the County's Hazardous Incident Response Team (HIRT) Front row, left to right: Amy Paquette, Ron Isip, Manon Maschue, Hyve Porcioncula, Ed Abuyen. Back row, left to right: Leon Wirschem, Brad Long, Todd Burton, Dave Cammall, Brad Richardson, Jim Henderson, Keith Waara.