Chancellor Sharp Thanks Texas Task Force 1 for Two Decades Service
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — From the rubble left behind after the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City emerged one of the world’s premier search and rescue teams. The tragedy in Oklahoma exposed the need for a highly-trained, nimble and effective group of men and women who could be ready to react at a moment’s notice to help communities in crisis.
Texans responded with the creation of Texas Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue, which is based on Texas A&M University System land and sponsored by the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service, or TEEX.
Texas Task Force 1 was organized and in place by 1997, and it responded to its first disaster, an F-5 tornado in Jarrell, in May of that year. Since then, Texas Task Force 1 has made Texas A&M University System proud over and over again.
State and national leaders repeatedly have looked to the task force for help amid some of the most significant disasters in Texas and the U.S. including: the September 11, 2001 attacks at the World Trade Center, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the 2015 flooding in Wimberley, Texas
Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp congratulated the brave team members of Texas Task Force 1 recently as they celebrated the organization’s twentieth anniversary.
“There’s a lot of property that has been saved, and a lot of lives that have been saved because of Aggies and their fellow members of Task Force 1 for the last 20 years,” Chancellor Sharp said.
Texas Task Force 1 functions as one of 28 teams under the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Urban Search and Rescue System. It also is statewide urban search and rescue team under direction of the Texas Division of Emergency Management. Additionally, Texas Task Force 1 coordinates the state’s swift water rescue program and the helicopter search and rescue team that works in conjunction with Texas Military Forces.
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About The Texas A&M University System
The Texas A&M University System is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation, with a budget of $4.2 billion. Through a statewide network of 11 universities and seven state agencies, the Texas A&M System educates more than 148,000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year. System-wide, research and development expenditures exceeded $972 million in FY 2016 and helped drive the state’s economy.
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