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Schaefer visits recipients of first responder funding

COLUMBIA, Mo. – State Sen. Kurt Schaefer visited the Boone County Fire Protection District Tuesday morning to tour the facility which houses Missouri Task Force One, a rapid response team designed to assist in search and rescue operations and other functions after natural disasters and large-scale terror attacks.

“It’s great to be here today to tour this facility and look at just what an amazing and complicated operation this is. Having been in the Senate for eight years, the one thing I have always tried to do is make sure public safety is recognized as a top priority in the state of Missouri, and there’s no better example of the top tier of public safety than Missouri Task Force One.”

Schaefer, as the outgoing budget chair, worked to put a $1.25 million line item in the Department of Public Safety’s budget. Roughly $750,000 of that will pay for supplies and labor for the task force should a disaster occur in the state, and the other half of a million goes towards larger training efforts made in concert with other rapid response teams across the country, including other state organizations and even military outfits like the National Guard.

Gear like this can be used to respond to disasters like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and event hazardous materials that escape containment.
Gear like this can be used to respond to disasters like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and event hazardous materials that escape containment.

Boone County Fire Protection District Chief Scott Olsen says that exercises like those are essential because it helps first responders prepare for the worst circumstances imaginable that they rarely face. Task Force One has responded to such calamities as Hurricane Sandy and Katrina, the Colorado floods of 2013, the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and the Joplin tornado of 2011.

However, the federal government, which pays for supplies and equipment through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), does not enough provide money for that kind of training, meaning that the 180+ people that are capable must volunteer for those training exercises.

“We currently get a certain amount of money each year from the federal government that really helps with the entire operation,” Olsen said. “Some of that money goes to training, but there never seems to be enough. In particular, there never seems to be enough to do very large-scale exercises.”

Those exercises can cost thousands of dollars and last several days, but Olsen says they “absolutely critical.”

“The skills we are teaching and training on don’t get exercised obviously every day,” he said. “So, our people need as much training as we can give them to make them prepared for those sorts of events. We consider ourselves the tip of the spear when we go into these disaster situations and we find very dangerous, very complex situations that we have to deal with that require a tremendous amount of expertise across disciplines.”

Schaefer said that state money can be reimbursed by the federal government. Most of the funds used to respond to natural disasters usually are reimbursed, but having that money saved away can reduce the lag that may hinder efforts to respond to disasters immediately.

“This is a little bit different in that right now, there are certain federal guidelines that trigger because this is essentially a federally funded operation in Task Force One,” Schaefer said. “They are reliant on federal regulations and federal guidelines that trigger when they are engaged in certain things. Sometimes you get a lag time, and since we’ve seen more recent disasters in the state of Missouri, this is what they brought to my attention.”

Task Force One is one of 28 teams in the nation equipped to both treat and deal with all manner of incidents, including a hazardous material incident. It is comprised of firefighters and other first responders from around the entire state.