The several day search and rescue effort for the missing child in the City of Clearlake helps to bring focus to the legion of volunteers that will step away from their daily lives to help bring the lost back home. In addition to the agency staffs from local and many other counties in boats, dive suits, helicopters, and marked vehicles, there was a backup of skilled volunteers from those same counties.
I”d like to spotlight those people in the county search and rescue associations (SAR) who traveled from their local Lake County homes and those of Napa, Marin, Tehama, Mendocino, Sonoma, Glenn, Solano, El Dorado, Butte, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Placer, Santa Clara, Monterey, and Sacramento counties. These are screened civilian volunteers who give their time to train at the myriad of special skills needed in a search and then travel to provide more time and unselfish help. Usually their sheriff”s office is mentioned, but the SARs are independent civilian associations.
These folks typically train on subjects such as the incident command system, search management, radio, GPS, map/compass coordinates, dog handling (several skill types), ORV, tracking, clue awareness, first aid, technical rope and information gathering. They all must pack their gear and demonstrate fitness levels for the terrain.
It sometimes takes a village of people with special interest and long-range commitment to provide the skills needed for a search in support of the Sheriff”s Office. I”ve watched our SAR respond for nine call-outs so far this year. But this one couldn”t make you prouder of the SAR community.
Jim Steele
Clearlake Oaks
