FEMA Updates Search, Find And Secure Activities For Columbia Investigation
Release Date: February 8, 2003
Release Number: 3171-14
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Lufkin, TX -- As the footprint of material from the space shuttle Columbia becomes better defined with each day of search, find and secure operations, the investigation gains information to use in determining the cause of the accident, Michael Brown, deputy director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said today.
"The joint effort to locate, mark and collect shuttle material has been successful thus far, providing analysts information they need to begin the next phase of the investigation," Brown said. "Interagency cooperation has been the key to our success."
Brown gave this mission update at the close of the investigation's first week.
- The Texas Department of Public Safety is concerned that it continues to receive shuttle material from well-meaning private citizens. Not
only is there a potential danger of harm from hazardous chemicals in
the materials, but also the shuttle investigation centers on knowing
the precise location of the material retrieved. Citizens are asked to
leave the material in place and notify local authorities immediately.
- Sixty-one Texas counties lay in the flight path of the shuttle. The area being searched covers 32,969 square miles and a population of more than seven million.
- Shoulder-to-shoulder line searches are being conducted in some areas where material has been concentrated. These are manpower-intensive,
using more than 500 National Guard troops, hundreds of local law enforcement
officers and volunteers and a 25-member mounted unit of the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice.
- EPA, NASA, FBI, Coast Guard and Texas dive teams are continuing sonar sweeps for underwater shuttle materials in the Toledo Bend Reservoir along the Texas and Louisiana state lines.
- NASA has three search teams at work in California, one in Arizona and one in New Mexico.
- From Lufkin, 103 federal-state response/support teams have been deployed numbering 1,529 personnel. In addition, from Fort Worth Naval Air Station, 150 investigators, including 99 members of a NASA Mishap Investigation
Team are involved. From Barksdale Air Force Base, La., 123 investigators
are in the field, including 89 with NASA and 10 with the NTSB.
- The Environmental Protection Agency has more than 60 teams responding to calls for removal of hazardous material. The teams are made up of
representatives from the Coast Guard, NASA and the Texas Commission
on Environmental Quality.
- Louisiana has 176 state law enforcement and agency personnel conducting search operations in that state.
- Search teams working in the wild were warned to beware of poison ivy, snakes, ticks, coyotes, skunks, foxes, rabid polecats and wild pigs.
- Residents of seven Texas counties have been alerted to be vigilant for possible material sites. The counties are Throckmorton, Shackelford, Stephens, Young, Palo Pinto, Hood and Erath. Authorities said reports would be handled expeditiously.
- Texas Department of Public Safety is working with NASA to confirm reports of shuttle material in Stonewall, Haskell, Kent and Dickens
counties.
- Texas has 353 state law enforcement agents, 29 department of transportation personnel, 23 from the Commission on Environment Quality, 36 parks and wildlife agents and 800 National Guard troops active in the recovery effort.
Last Modified: Wednesday, 26-Mar-2003 09:21:28