O.C. Rescue Team Expects Only the Worst : Bombing: Volunteers know that grim recovery task can only give families a sense of ‘closure’ to tragedy.

Even the savage forces of nature could not prepare veteran firefighter Chuck Nicola for the devastation sown by man at the federal building here.

“I was in Mexico City, Loma Prieta and Northridge for the quakes,” said the 47-year-old leader of Orange County’s urban search and rescue team after 12 exhausting hours of sifting through rubble that is still two stories high. “This is by far the worst of them.”

For Nicola and his elite team, which arrived Saturday night and will leave Thursday, rescue attempts at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building were made all the more disheartening by the realization it will probably lead only to bodies.

“When there’s an earthquake, things just fall down,” said Nicola, a sturdy, gray-haired man, who helped free a dock worker trapped underneath a collapsed freeway after the Loma Prieta temblor in 1989. “But here, you had things exploding up and then coming down. That greatly reduced the chances of survival. . . . Anyone who came away from this is a walking miracle.”

On Tuesday, the death toll climbed to 140 with 37 bodies still unrecovered, nearly two weeks after America’s deadliest act of terrorism.

Yet, the specially trained 62-member squad composed of veteran firefighters, civil and structural engineers, doctors and law enforcement officers knew the importance of their grim task. Team members such as Dr. Audrey Kanow, Mike Beekman and Marc Hawkins understood that extricating bodies from the building’s nine-story carcass would ease the painful healing process for the many families still uncertain about the fate of their loved ones.

“We are batting cleanup and probably without the tangible reward of pulling someone out alive,” said search team manager Rob Patterson, 37, from San Juan Capistrano. “But what drives us, what keeps us motivated is we know we have to provide closure for as many Oklahomans as we can.”

After nearly three days of painstakingly combing through the huge mounds of debris, the team took a major step toward its somber goal--they pulled out a dozen bodies and the parts of five more. One body discovered about 15 feet above ground level had to be partially dismembered to be removed, said team workers.

“A major portion of the body was trapped,” said Scott Brown, 36, a search team physician from Mission Viejo. “It was horrible.”

Adding urgency to the team’s intensive search was the introduction of heavy machinery Tuesday. Outfitted with special claws, the tank-like machines can reach inside areas too risky for workers to enter.

But the decision to begin using machines, which indiscriminately scoop up rubble along with bodies, represents a tacit admission by authorities that there are no survivors, said officials.

By late today or Thursday, the machines are expected to take over the job completely. Orange County’s mission concluded late Tuesday and turned over search efforts to local firefighters.

Like the other rescue teams, the Orange County contingent battled not only an unstable building, but also especially harsh weather in their rescue efforts. Late Sunday, the local team’s work was halted three times because of new cracks discovered in concrete beams, the effects of high winds and lightning that struck the mangled building several times.

“It was pell-mell out of the building,” said Nicola, who noted that workers had difficulty hearing the air-horn warning signal over the din of work. “We almost got hurt coming out of there.”

Weather hazards pale in comparison to what team members refer to as “The Slab from Hell.”

The 30,000-pound piece of concrete dangles nine stories directly above the area where the crew focused its efforts. The slab is held precariously by twisted iron-reinforced bars and by cables anchored to support beams.

“It’s hanging by a thread,” said Nicola. “It’s the greatest single source of consternation here.”

But more than anything else, the work is tedious. Crews labor on their hands and knees filling five-gallon containers with debris. The buckets are then sent out, dumped, and examined by federal agents for possible crime evidence.

The slow method, however, yields items that would otherwise go unnoticed. A meticulous search Monday of the day-care center, which used to be on the second floor, proved to be the most wrenching for workers, many of whom have young children at home.

When workers first entered the area, shattered glass blanketed the former playroom like snow, they said. Sweeping aside the fragments, workers uncovered toys, coloring books and clothes. But it was a baby shoe, completely intact, that moved Brown, the father of a 16-month-old.

“The shoe had been tied with a double lace, the kind a parent uses for a child that can’t keep his shoe on,” said Brown, his tired eyes watering. “You know it was on a baby’s foot. I just don’t have words for it.”

New technology saved the crews from even greater tedium, and greatly expedited the search. Most useful was the “search-cam”--a device on a long stick with a fiber-optic camera attached that allows workers to peer into small areas for victims.

While praising its effectiveness, camera operator Beekman, 33, said the small camera can test his nerves.

“It’s really a double-edged sword,” said the reserve officer for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. “On the one hand, you might find a dead body, but on the other doing so will give the family a sense of closure.”

As they cope with life and death, the team sometimes neglects to look out for their own well-being, according to Kanow, the team’s supervising physician. Kanow, an emergency-room physician from Yorba Linda, repeatedly interrupted workers, directing them to take rest and food breaks.

“They are so engrossed in their work,” said Kanow, who said no one has suffered major injuries during the search. “Sometimes, they don’t realize they are ignoring their own needs.”

Added Hawkins, 43, of Mission Viejo, who handled the team’s logistics: “We’re amped all the time,” said the battalion chief with the Orange County Fire Authority. “We are all working like a bunch of ants.”

The team, summoned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency last week, looked forward to its brief moments of rest at the Myriad Convention Center, a few blocks away from the blast site. The complex has been converted into a mini-city for emergency crews like that of Orange County, whose $1-million-a-day price tag is paid by FEMA.

Inside, the team indulged in a host of donated food and services that include haircuts, massages, hot tubs and even a chiropractor. When getting meals after a long shift, team members found volunteers won’t even let them carry their trays to the tables.

“The people here have been so wonderful,” said Patterson. “It kind of makes you feel guilty that you can’t help them even more.”

On their first night, the team soon discovered the depth of appreciation residents reserve for their out-of-town helpers. The crew found candies, handwritten notes from local schoolchildren and even teddies bear resting on their simple cots.

“These guys can be real macho,” Kanow said. “But let me tell you, when they saw that, a lot of them started to cry.”

As a band of team members boarded a shuttle bus Tuesday morning to begin another 12-hour shift, Pam Peachlyn offered her thanks, while on her way to her job at the nearby Treasury Department.

“I had to say something,” said Peachlyn 43, who volunteered to wash dishes and serve meals for teams today. “They came here so willingly and they work as though it’s their family and friends in there. It’s overwhelming.”

And throughout the entire city, signs of gratitude are everywhere for rescue workers. Office buildings display huge thank-you messages on their high-rise windows. Flowers are delivered to work sites. Some volunteers wishing to cook meals have been turned away because of an overflow turnout.

When a call went out that a veterinarian was needed to treat a minor injury on a police dog, emergency crews received 60 phone calls immediately.

“It’s really unbelievable,” Nicola said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

But residents, who frequently exhibit a regional wit, aren’t beyond delivering a gentle ribbing to the Orange County team.

“They say are you the ones from Florida or that bankrupt county?” said Hawkins. “We just laugh.”

The town’s generosity has further confounded the team’s attempts to make sense of the tragedy.

“It seems impossible someone would want to do this to these people,” said Kanow. “It’s such a quiet and unassuming city. It’s such a crime, in the truest sense of the word.”

“This whole thing makes me so angry,” added Nicola. “But it really shows how vulnerable we all are.”

In contrast to the warm spirits is the overt and powerful display of law enforcement downtown. Hundreds of local, state and federal law officials--many of whom patrol with pistols strapped to their legs--have virtually sealed off a several block area around the bombing site.

And federal authorities banned the media from talking pictures or talking to workers within the cordoned off area.

But the Orange County team wants to brighten moods downtown before they leave. The team will plant an orange tree to show their gratitude in the city’s botanical gardens a few blocks from the federal building.