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By Myrna Trauntvein The Juab County Search and Rescue (SAR) team is no longer interested in serving as volunteers who provide security at parades, the rodeo and other events in the county. Lt. Drake Underwood, Emergency Manager with the Juab County Sheriff’s Office, is also liaison with the county search and rescue team. “I have been liaison with search and rescue for the last four years,” said Underwood. “They wanted to thank the commission for their support for all the years in the past.” He said that the proposal had been presented in the past and had been voted down but, reluctantly, the group agreed that some changes needed to be made and one of those was that they would no longer provide crowd management. “They want to focus on their mission which is to provide search and rescue services,” said Underwood. The Search and Rescue Team are losing members, he said. One way to retain the current members and attract new ones was to make the services they provide less time-consuming. “Their serving as event managers and volunteers is difficult,” said Marvin Kenison, commission chairman. “We are down to 25 members,” said Underwood. “We have five probationary members.” At one time there were between 40 and 50 members. Underwood said that the volunteers were also missing a lot of family time because they were serving as security at the events their families were attending without them or were not attending because they could not be together. “For example, fathers were providing parade traffic assistance during the Grad Parade that their own children were participants in,” he said. He said that the members of SAR were reluctant to vote against continuing to serve as crowd management but had determined their higher purpose was to serve as members of a group that provided search and rescue operations. The call was to serve in times of crisis. SAR teams locate and extract individuals in distress from dangerous or hazardous situations, such as natural disasters, wilderness accidents, or collapsed structures. Their mission involves searching for lost or stranded people, providing medical aid at the scene, and safely evacuating them from the hazardous area to safety. SAR operations utilize a variety of skills and technologies. “We have encouraged too many events,” said Doug Anderson, Juab County Sheriff. “We have the derby, the Ute Stampede, parades in Nephi City, motor cross, Easter at the Sand Dunes, and numerous other events.” Most SAR do not want to provide security for the Christmas Light Parade because it is Thanksgiving weekend and they would like to have the freedom to travel and visit family, he said. Underwood said that it ended up being the same ten people who were doing the security and traffic support. Morale was low and there were problems in trying to recruit new members. “They had a hard time voting against the SAR doing the crowd and traffic control,” said Underwood. “But they finally did.” Kenison said there had been a struggle on getting enough members to do a search. It was beginning to be a struggle. “The group we do have is very dedicated,” said Underwood. “They do a good job and they keep up their training.” “Our searches have been increasing,” said Anderson. At some point, said Underwood, the county needed to address the need for security and traffic control at the Ute Stampede. The county SAR wanted to express their gratitude to the public and to the commission for their support, said Underwood. Kenison said that individuals could still volunteer to help out at events, but they would no longer participate as a group.
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