St. Croix divers called to Minnesota disaster

Ran Friday, August 3, 2007

St. Croix divers called to Minnesota disaster

By Leader-telegram Staff

A St. Croix County emergency team was asked to help at the Interstate-35W bridge disaster in Minneapolis for three hours Wednesday night.
Wes Halvorsen, operations manager for the EMS unit, said the team of four people was called to the site with a rescue boat.
The dwindling daylight hours restricted the crew from getting into the water, even though it is capable of working at night, Halvorsen said.
"We stayed around in case they decided to do some diving at night," he said.
The team was on-site for three hours, said Ken Kolbe of St. Croix EMS and a First Responder.
"They wanted to do as much as they could while they still had daylight because they don't want to put rescue people at odds," Kolbe said.
St. Croix County has a mutual aid agreement and often works with Pierce County and with Minnesota's Washington County. But this incident was unusual.
"It's pretty rare to go far into the Minnesota side," Halvorsen said.
Halvorsen said the crew was called shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday and mobilized quickly. Arriving at the staging area on the Washington Street bridge with many other fire department, police and rescue personnel, he said authorities took inventory of available equipment.
All the emergency personnel, bystanders and victims created an atmosphere Halvorsen described as "chaotic."
"There was a lot of stuff going on," he said.
Scheduled to return to the site on Saturday, the St. Croix County dive team is expected to participate in a recovery mission. They will look for vehicles or bodies of missing motorists or personnel, Halvorsen said.
The crew consists of Halvorsen, dive coordinator Glen Hartman and divers Jay Penfield and James Duffy. All four are from Hudson.