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DART Rescue Practice Exercise
February 13, 2003

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Rescue Practice for Rescue Squads A, B, and C

On February 13, 2003, DART Rescue conducted an 8-hour shore construction and testing practice at its Collapse Structure Rescue training facility. The impromptu theme of the day was "We're proud to be Americans". All 28 members present were issued American Flag bandanas.

In the morning, the group was broken up into four squads. There was one cutting squad and three shore construction squads. Three FEMA Horizontal Class III shores were constructed. In the afternoon, a FEMA Horizontal Class III Shore and a FEMA Horizontal Class III Offset Shore were constructed and tested. See pictures and captions for additional information.

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DART Rescue Practice Exercise - Preparation

Johns crew completing Carlos doing what he does best. (69,169 bytes) Lowering 3-ton slab into place. (50,969 bytes) Setting up air bag to test Horizontal Shore. (58,107 bytes) Dennis Ray - It's great to have him back. (75,626 bytes)
Doug and squad doing a little pre-planning. (33,219 bytes) Moving slab into place prior to constructing shore. (73,318 bytes) Doug's squad having a chat. (47,681 bytes) Sliding the wedge into place. Wedge is used to offset slab. Note that Dolci does not have proper PPE. (72,001 bytes) Roger cutting lumber to size. (58,438 bytes)
Jerry sizing lumber. (78,235 bytes) Warm-up shore construction. (34,378 bytes) Preparing air bags. (54,911 bytes) Placing air bag between wedge and wall. Darn that Dolci, still no PPE. (69,923 bytes) Securing air bag. (62,442 bytes)
Snuggling slab to wedge. (37,657 bytes) We start them young. Randy and son. (64,770 bytes) Hmmmm. (59,269 bytes) Stand around and wait practice. (50,024 bytes)  

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DART Rescue Practice Exercise - Horizontal Shore

Constructing FEMA Horizontal Class III Shore. (65,444 bytes) Note lack of 2 Note that rails were placed after diagonals were installed. (70,153 bytes) Upper diagonal is a little short. (50,072 bytes) Nice looking shore. Shore has a design load capability of 30 tons. (69,788 bytes)
A nearly picture perfect FEMA Horizontal Class III shore. (60,074 bytes) Shore under ~ 10-ton load. Note that concrete slab is in bending. (71,240 bytes) Shore/slab under 25-ton load. (51,958 bytes) Shore/slab under a 35-ton load. (55,884 bytes) Stand Back folks, she's ready to blow! (71,150 bytes)
Cheap slab of concrete. It doesn't look as if this shore will fail. (64,090 bytes) Note failure of bottom rail on slab side.  Shore load ~ 50-tons. (65,316 bytes) This represents a slab failure and not a shore failure. Shore probably would have held up to 75 tons or more. (63,208 bytes)    

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DART Rescue Practice Exercise - Offset Shore

Tom Timbal making note of angle of slab in degrees. Or was it in percentages? (61,534 bytes) Notice the gap between the post and the strut.  Not Good!! The strut was cut at the wrong angle. (57,200 bytes) Smart level should have been set to degrees rather than %. There is only a couple of degrees difference between 23 degrees and 23%.  But, it's enough!! (70,894 bytes) The struts could have been re-cut and the wedges used to take up the difference. (53,335 bytes) Cutting the diagonals to the right length is tricky. (62,244 bytes)
Top rail too close to posts. (62,594 bytes) Dolci gave the squad ten minutes to complete the shore. (64,110 bytes) Ops!! Had to move the top rails inboard. Note that diagonal on the left is the right length but the one on the right is too short. (50,699 bytes) Securing the air hose to 36 Note gaps because of incorrect cuts. In subsequent pictures note how gap closes as load increases. Present load on system is approximately 5 tons. Also note how forward strut has started to cut into post. (58,763 bytes)
Who's hiding? System under about 24 ton load. (65,074 bytes) System under approximately 40-ton force. Note how system is starting to compress. Also, note how struts are cutting into posts. Not bad for a shore that has a design load of 30 tons.   (84,296 bytes) Strut knifing into post. Approximate load is 50 tons, which is well above the 30-ton design load. Note that concrete slab is undamaged. (49,844 bytes) Shore failed at ~ 55 tons. Failure was catastrophic. Note severed air hose. Also, note that longer bottom struts failed before shorter top struts. (80,990 bytes) Notice how gap between back diagonal and 2

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