*** El Paso, CO Search & Rescue *** Tue Jul 11 14:21:00 1995 Letter : 5270312 From: Lee, Ron Address : RLEE@cosmpdaero.ftcollinsco.ncr.com To: SAR Info BBS I am a member of El Paso County Search & Rescue (Colorado) located at 3950 Interpark Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80907. Our group consists of 60 members and team expertise is in mountain rescue including four seasons, high angle, etc. 1995 is the team's 25 year anniversary. I serve as Secretary Today we own our own 7000 sq foot building (final mortagage payment goes in this year). Our building consists of about 6000 sq ft main section which has two vehicle bays originally designed for 18 wheel truck maintenance. As a result we have vehicle doors on both ends. The front section contains our communications room, a Board Room, (3) restrooms, and a kitchen area. A loft area above these areas supports 4 small offices. These are set up for (1) Equipment/Medical storage, (2) the "Peddler" (the team member who handles sales of personal items such as uniforms, decals, books and manuals), (3) a computer room, (4) the team library. The remaining third of the loft area is open storage of disaster related supplies. Attached to the back of this building is a new 1000 sq ft single story training/meeting room. This room accomodates about 40 persons when configured with long tables and everyone facing the same way, or 80 people at tables if chaired on both sides. Without tables we can accomodate about 80-100 persons in chairs. Our training room has an audio-visual room at the back which serves as a projection booth and AV storage area. We have "white boards" mounted on the wall behind the speaker, team photos on one wall, and a rack of handouts and newletters from other teams on the other end. This room has outside access doors to the yard area for combined in/outdoor training sessions. The office and training room areas are fully heated and air conditioned. The bay area is also heated. We have a propane backup generator capable of supplying all of our electrical needs including heating. We own land on either end of our building sufficient for landing helicopters, (We have landed Chinooks on the south side.) and have paved parking for about 18 vehicles. We also have 2 Kristi snowcats, a small Thiokol snowcat, 2 fully equipped 4WD Rescue Trucks, a 2WD 3/4 ton utility pickup, a 4WD Suburban used primarily as a people hauler, and a 25 foot communications/command van. All except snowcats are equipped with modern flashers and sirens. Our communications van is a converted Book Mobile. We refurbished it with "white board" walls, divided it into 4 compartments with sliding doors between. The compartments are from front to back: (1) Driver's area: The engine compartment is beside the driver. We have built a worksurface over the engine compartment which wraps around from the windshield along the drivers right and around to the drivers back. This has a lift up section for the driver to move about the vehicle if necessary. (2) Communications area: It seats two communicators facing a bank of radios, mostly programmable except for a couple of 60 or 100 watt 4 channel VHF units. Included are an aircraft radio and a 2 meter amateur radio transciever, and various VHF/UHF commercial types. All can be switched from speaker to a headphone integrater panel singly or in any combination. These are supplied by 12 vdc from a battery bank or from an inverter connected to the 115vac system. There is a computer terminal for logging events. (3) Command area. This area contains 4 uhf EMS radios, a computer terminal networked to the comm area and to the DEC VAX computer. There is counterspace for several people to work at. This area also contains our map storage cabinet upon which is mounted a photocopier. (4) Kitchen, miscellaneous area. This is a very small area containing some closet space next to the rear door, a few shelves and a small refrigerator and microwave oven. This is not a full kitchen, and we do not maintain food supplies. The comm van is fully self sufficient. It has fuel tanks for running the built-in electrical generator about 48 hours. We have electrical forced air heat and air conditioning. The roof has numerous antennae and there are UHF and VHF beam anntennae stored on the roof. Two telescoping masts are permanently mounted at the rear corners of the vehicle. these extend about 12 feet above the roof and are used to support the beam antennae when utilized. A list of equipment supplied in our two rescue trucks will be provided in a separate file. I will also see if we can scan some pictures for posting. ---------------------