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SALT LAKE CITY — Chasing toys, going up and down ramps and getting treats — for Taylor the dog, it’s all fun and games.
But to her handler it’s called training, because tomorrow these games could be a search and rescue operation.
Both are members of Utah's Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue Team.
"It's their nose. They can cover such a vast majority of the area in such a small time,” said Trevor Lawrence, who is Taylor’s handler.
Taylor's main job is to sniff out people who are trapped, and after the mudslide that buried a Washington town, it’s a very handy skill.
"It's their instinct to hunt,” said Lawrence, “They're hunting for that toy that's tied to the human scent."
Of course, there are a lot of humans on this team, as well.
You can tell just by the large number of gear bags, helmets and flashlights sitting on shelves inside the group's West Jordan headquarters.
They’re all just waiting for the call to go.
“We train for this all the time. Our guys are so type A, and it's difficult to train all the time and not have any responses,” said Bill Brass, the program manager for Task Force 1, “and we're fortunate we were able to go to Colorado recently."
This past September, a massive flood wiped out homes, roads and towns in Colorado.
It’s a situation very similar to what’s going on in Washington right now.
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Utah Task Force 1 got the call to go to work amid pouring rain and a flash flood warning for all of Boulder County."You've got wet conditions because the rain is continuous right now,” said Brass. “The mud is 15-20 feet deep there and they're got a lot of missing people there."
That's the hardest part, the emotion of it all.
"It is difficult,” said Brass, “In Colorado, a lot of guys saw and experienced things there that are hard to forget. There were a lot of people’s homes and livelihoods destroyed forever.”
There are 210 members of Task Force 1.
If they get called by the National Urban Search and Rescue Response system, about 80 of them will go.
“We’re so close to the Washington area that we hope, if it does expand, they’ll call on us,” said Brass.
Besides the Colorado floods, Task Force 1 has been called for search and rescue operations after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.
