Rescue Team Returns From Grim Task

Wearing dress uniforms and multicolored ribbon solidarity pins, more than 60 members of the Los Angeles County Urban Search and Rescue Task Force stepped off a military transport from Oklahoma City on Saturday, wearied from their task and humbled by its futility.

The elite team, trained to save lives by extricating victims from collapsed and damaged structures, found only bodies as it searched for nine days through the concrete remnants of the bombed-out Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

“It was a tough week and we’re glad to be home, but we’re also thankful we had the opportunity to help,” said Mike Idol, an assistant fire chief. “We just wish we had the opportunity to rescue some live victims.”

Among the first to offer help to the overwhelmed Oklahoma City Fire Department, the Los Angeles group arrived the day after the April 19 blast with 62 men and women, six dogs and two physicians to help them weather the daunting task.

The task force is one of 26 teams around the country that was formed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 1989, following the massive Armenian earthquake, to respond to national disasters.

But this team, one of 10 such groups called to Oklahoma, was especially valued because of its earthquake experience.

Its members helped in rescue work at the Northridge Meadows Apartments, where 16 people were killed in the 1994 quake.

Oklahoma City has hosted the largest mobilization since FEMA assembled its disaster plans.

More than 600 firefighters, technicians and other personnel have responded to the bombing.

After assembling along the Tarmac at March Air Force Base, squad members said they were hard-pressed to adequately describe the magnitude of this disaster.

“The pictures don’t do it justice,” said Capt. Reggie Lee of Northridge. “We tried not to concentrate on (the horrors). We had a job to do.”

After their brief welcome ceremony, the squad headed home to their Pacoima headquarters for what was sure to be a more emotional reunion with friends and family.

The Oklahomans, they said, took care of them, offering everything from food and rain gear to words of encouragement and gratitude.

The squad turned over their dirty clothing each night to civilian volunteers, they said, and found it cleaned and folded by their beds each morning with a mint on top.

Oklahoma firefighters tried to help relieve them of the worst part of the job, they said, by often removing the dead victims that the Los Angeles squad located.

“When bad things happen, good people go into action,” said County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman. “Today we’re here to welcome back some good people.”

As the Los Angeles County team was disembarking its plane to the piped-in tunes of a military march, a task force from Orange County was preparing to head out to the Midwest. Unlike the first group, the new team had few hopes of offering family members the happy endings the teams are trained to provide.

Times staff writer Abigail Goldman contributed to this report.