Tuesday, November 14, 2017 Friends of TEXSAR, Hurricane Harvey was the costliest disaster to ever strike the United States, bringing with it record flooding and catastrophic winds along the Texas coastline. Texas Search and Rescue answered the call from agencies all across Texas, providing more than 700 volunteer hours by 85 members who rescued over 700 people and pets from Harvey floodwaters. Immediately following Hurricane Harvey, the 2nd annual TEXSAR Search Party fundraiser took place on September 30th where TEXSAR members and supporters...
The First Annual TEXSAR Team Meeting and Training Weekend was held this past weekend on May 15, 16 and 17 at the beautiful LCRA Black Rock Park on Lake Buchanan. Over 50 TEXSAR Team Members from all across the state convened at the camp for a full weekend of classroom training, field training, water rescue training, food and fellowship. Training topics such as K9 searches, HAZMAT and WMD’s, K9 first aid and assisting individuals w/ disabilities were just a...
Basic Man Tracking Class at Camp MabryTEXSAR is proud to announce that twelve of our members recently completed Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced SAR Tracking classes taught by world-renowned tracker and trainer Fernando Moreira of Professional Trackers. These courses, subsidized and scheduled by TEXSAR and TMAR, included close to 40 participants from TEXSAR, Austin Police SAR, Travis County Search & Rescue, and TMAR. The 9 days of training consisted of classroom and field work designed to teach the...
Chief Nim Kidd of TDEM addresses the class. On April 18-20, 2013, search and rescue instructors from TEXSAR provided training for our partners in the Texas State Guard Maritime Regiment (TMAR). The class this year had 65 members and included two full days of classroom and practical training followed by a night operations exercise on the evening of Friday the 19th and a full-scale exercise on Saturday the 20th. On Sunday, TEXSAR members were recognized by the Commanding General, Brigadier General...
TEXSAR held training at Russel Park on Lake Georgetown over the weekend. The team held exercises covering Search and Rescue elements including navigation, grid searches, clue detection, patient packaging and extraction, communications, water rescue, and Incident Command. All-volunteer group trains in rescues: kxan.com ...
On June 12 two of our TEXSAR members graduated as Master Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Instructors. This will allow TEXSAR to provide training to new CERT Instructors throughout Texas for both Adult and Teen CERT programs. Mackenzie Kelly and Greg Pyles were two of only nine CERT Instructors from across the State selected to take this training. They were the only graduates from the Capital Area Council of Governments (CAPCOG) Region. The training was provided by CAPCOG, North Central Texas...
This weekend, TEXSAR members Shawn Hohnstreiter and John Michael Gibbs completed the final processes in gaining apprentice instructor status for vertical rope rescue and flood and swiftwater rescue. The new instructors join TEXSAR member and instructor Mark Baumann as the training cadre for TEXSAR’s vertical rescue team and flood and swiftwater rescue team. Regarding the achievement, Instructor Hohnstreiter said, “This represents the growth of our search and rescue team and our commitment to the community. We can be sure our technical...
On Saturday morning, May 19th, TEXSAR team members headed to New Braunfels to participate in a training “play day” with Wesley Meyers of Rescue Training International (RTI). The morning started at a heavily canopied canyon preserve where TEXSAR members, along with members from TMAR and first responders from across Texas, were provided with an overview of Land Search and Rescue Concepts and Lost Person Behavior Patterns. Participants then practiced and refined their line search and echo location skills. Next was...
Four of our members completed the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Train the Trainer course this week held by the Texas Department of Emergency Management (TDEM) and FEMA. This new training capability allows TEXSAR to assist rural jurisdictions and volunteer fire departments as well as “Teen Cert” programs in area high schools to create, train and maintain CERT programs that will provide them with “force multipliers” to respond to large incidents and assist with...
TEXSAR has a new “Home” for meetings and training! The Austin Firefighters Association (AFA) has graciously invited us to hold our meetings in the AFA Union Hall located at 7537 Cameron Road, Austin, Texas 78752. We will adjust our meeting schedule to not conflict with their meetings and are very much looking forward to having the use of this great facility! ...
