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Urban Search and Rescue South Carolina Task Force 1 or SC-TF1 is an urban search and rescue task force that is sponsored by the South Carolina Firefighter Mobilization Committee, which was created by the South Carolina Firefighter Mobilization Act of 2000.
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The committee is made up of fire service representatives, the State Emergency Management Director, the State Forestry Director, and a representative from a county Emergency Management agency. It is a part of the State Emergency Operations Plan and can deploy within South Carolina, or out of state through existing mutual aid agreements or through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact.
SC-TF1 meets and in most cases exceeds the staffing and equipment to the NIMS/FEMA recommendations for Type I urban search and rescue task forces, including robust search, rescue, planning, HAZMAT/WMD, medical and logistics sections capable of self-sustained 24-hour heavy rescue operations for over 72 hours and for deployments of up to 10 days. It is a founding member of the State Urban Search and Rescue Alliance (SUSAR) which is a network of North American state and commonwealth urban search and rescue resources that formed after a meeting in South Carolina in 2005.
SC-TF1 was one of the first state urban search and rescue resources to be deployed into St. Tammany Parish and St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina in September, 2005.
Four regional building collapse search and rescue teams are part of the South Carolina Firefighter Mobilization plan but not part of SC-TF1. They are located in Charleston, Greenville, Hilton Head Island, and Myrtle Beach.