| Search And
Rescue (SAR) began in Sonoma County in the
late 1960's with the organization of the Sheriff's Mounted Posse and the
Sheriff's Jeep Patrol. Most of the activity of these two units was devoted
to parades and the few missing person searches that cropped up from time
to time. It was common that missing person reports weren't even taken
for 24 hours, and missing persons generally had a low priority.
In the 1970's, however, everything changed.
Missing persons, particularly missing children, took on a new importance,
and the Sheriff's Department responded by reorganizing the search and
rescue units into a single cohesive group dedicated to searching for lost
and missing persons. By 1989, laws were passed that defined groups of
missing persons that were identified as "at risk", and action
to locate these persons was mandated within four hours of the report.
Today the Search and Rescue Team is called out quickly, usually within
one hour of the missing persons report.
The Search and Rescue Team is a part of
the Sheriff's Department Helicopter/Search and Rescue Bureau. The unit
is staffed by two paid personnel, one sergeant, who is the Bureau commander,
and one deputy, who is the search and rescue coordinator. The rest of
the team consists of about 30 unpaid civilian professionals trained in
all aspects of search and rescue, including search techniques, land navigation,
tracking, rescue and recovery, and first aid. Many members of the team
are emergency medical technicians, and all team members are trained to
minimum level of first responder. Searches are managed by an overhead
team trained in incident command systems, command post operations, and
search management. The team also assists the Department in evidence search
and crime scenes. The Department is lucky to have an Explorer Search and
Rescue Post (Explorer
Post 2002) as part of the SAR team. This program, sponsored by the
Learning for Life Organization within the Boy Scouts of Americas and the
Department, currently has a membership of about 12 young men and women
from ages 14 through 21. They receive the same, if not higher, levels
of training as the rest of the unit and have the same responsibilities
on searches. Post "2" members have been an integral and important
part of the search and rescue team since the late 1970's.
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