By DAVID J. HAMMOND
Because of its availability and versatility, wood shoring is widely used to temporarily stabilize damaged structures during urban search and rescue (US&R) operations. Shoring systems have been developed using wellaccepted engineering principles and design specifications. Testing conducted in California since 2000 has sought to verify predicted strengths and, more importantly, the failure characteristics of vertical and lateral wood shoring systems. The sites included the Menlo Park (CA) Fire District, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) US&R California Task Force 3 (CATF3) training site, and the Moffett Field National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Ames Research Center (NASA/ARC) Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (DART) training site.
Most of the testing occurred during advanced structures specialist training (StS2), funded by the Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (DHS/FEMA) US&R Program and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) US&R Program. All tested shoring systems conform to current FEMA US&R standard shoring or are intended to become standard shoring in the near future.
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