First responders receive special task force training

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Special tasks police officers and fire fighters ended an eight day structural collapse technician training Monday.

“This is actually apart of their FEMA training, so not all the guys on the task force learn from swift water to rope rescue this is one element for structural collapse that they do," said Special Task Force three Leader of Mississippi, Chad Bryant

State Homeland security officials said it is imperative to keep first responders prepared in case a tornado or hurricane takes place.

"We started with this idea of search and rescue task forces, and currently they do everything form swift water rescue to today its collapse structure. These types of incidents the local resources that typically aren’t there this is kind of addition of what they do.” said Public Information Officer of Mississippi Homeland Security, Todd Frier.

According to Task Force leaders the purpose and priority is to save lives no matter how intensive the damage.

“You might look at it from the outside like that’s a total collapse and no one is alive but they could have voids, but they have access to water then we have a chance to get them out, and its almost like they surgically remove the stuff.” said Bryant

This is the first structural collapse class in two years to train local responders for emergency situations.