A look at Northeast Tennessee's award-winning rescue team

"We're different, but the same." That's what Pete Sanders, Johnson City Fire Department district chief, said about the Tennessee District 1 Task Force. It's a federally funded team made up of emergency responders from municipalities across Northeast Tennessee. When Sanders said the people are different, but the same, he's talking about more than just the job description. The people who make up the task force come from different towns, counties or entities — whether it's the fire department, emergency medical services or emergency management agency — and are tied together through the task force's work. But what Sanders meant by the same is something you can't quite find in paperwork. "The mission is all the same. We're here because we can help and we want to help. That doesn't change from service to service. I don't care if it's EMS. I don't care if it's [the] fire [department] or police," Sanders said. "That basic yearning to help is always there." That work was especially important in the emergency response to Hurricane Helene, when the Nolichucky River rose about two feet per hour and crested over the 94-foot-tall Nolichucky Dam in Greene County, according to the Tennessee Climate Office "There's no department in this room that has the ability or capacity to handle a large event by themselves. The thought process of that is invalid. It takes a village," Washington County and Johnson City EMS Chief Dan Wheeley said ahead of a day of training for the task force. The District 1 Task Force team is made up of staff from Washington County and Johnson City EMS, Johnson City, Bristol and Kingsport fire departments and Sullivan County Emergency Management Agency — but anyone employed by a public safety agency in the eight counties of Northeast Tennessee can participate. That includes agencies and departments in Hancock and Greene counties. Those individuals can apply to the team, and if they meet the requirements, participate when the team is activated for a local disaster or deployed out of the state. Whether or not the task force is deployed to an out-of-state disaster depends on where the emergency is and how many personnel they would need to send, and if they would still be able to respond to a local disaster with remaining personnel. The team is funded by Homeland Security grants. Mayors and city managers that sit on the District 1 homeland security council decide how that money is allocated. Sullivan County EMA director Jim Bean oversees the task force along with its steering committee. Bean sits on the committee as the chair alongside Wheeley, who is the vice chair. The steering committee organizes the team's annual training days and reviews its budget, grant requests and equipment purchases. Representatives from public safety agencies across the region sit on the committee. The team has three main divisions: the Swiftwater Rescue, Urban Search and Rescue and Incident Management teams. The task force hosted training for all three teams the first week of September. Assistant Chief of Operations at the Johnson City Fire Department Ed Haynes has been with the district team for 20 years. He said being able to train with each other has "paid off time and time again." "No matter what, the skills we do out here today certainly are great to brush up on and have practice [with]. But it's just as great of an asset to work with people in the other agencies, to be familiar with each other, to train with each other, learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses and how we can help each other," said Haynes. Swiftwater Rescue The District 1 swiftwater team was accredited by the state in 2022. To participate on the team, you need to pass a 200 meter swim test, 12 minutes of treading water and 100 meters of towing a person through water. There are also different positions on the swiftwater component of the task force, including rescue technicians, boat operators and bowmen. The task force swiftwater team was awarded the Higgins and Langley Outstanding Achievement Award this year at the 2025 Riversport Swiftwater Rescue Conference in Oklahoma City in August. That's an international award for swiftwater and flood rescue, recognizing "safety, competence and far reaching impact." The team was recognized for rescuing 60 people from the Unicoi County Hospital and five people downstream from the hospital during Helene flooding. The task force hosted three days of training on the Nolichucky River for its swiftwater rescue division. Training included self-rescue swim skills, practicing throwing ropes to swimmers, swimming rescues and boat-on-tether drills. "Water is not for everybody, certainly. To see everybody just jumping in when we said 'Let's go up and swim the main rapid,' nobody said 'No, I don't really feel comfortable doing that;' they jumped right in there and did it," Wheeley said about their days training on the river. Chief Wheeley was there alongside newer faces from the Erwin Fire Department. Staff from Washington County EMS came out to train with the team for the first time, too. "We can all go and work together, out on the river, we can go to another special event down the road and do a rope rescue," said Mason Berstler, Washington County rescue technician. "We all know how to mesh really well together." Urban Search and Rescue Urban Search and Rescue handles any rescue responses that don't involve water. That includes rescuing someone from a trench or tight space, a building collapse, or searching for missing people after a disaster. District personnel practiced search and recovery skills along debris piles on Jackson Island using SARTopo, a mapping technology used for disaster response. "We really want to get out there to work with each other, learn from each other as far as what's stronger, maybe a little tip of the trade," said Haynes. "That's what we'll be concentrating on." Team personnel said SARTopo tracking technology was vital for the district team in search and rescue response after Helene. Incident Management Team "I've got to experience the incident management teams firsthand in Helene. They were a godsend to Washington County," Wheeley told a room of task force personnel. The Incident Management team handles administration and logistics of the disaster response from an emergency operations center. That includes operating SARTopo technology, assisting with information and assignment updates. Goals Wheeley hopes the task force will eventually have a centralized warehouse for all the district equipment. Participating departments currently split the responsibility for housing district team equipment. He also hopes to eventually be able to fund a part-time position responsible for maintaining the district equipment. That burden currently falls to the departments. "It's hard. You send a team out for two weeks on a deployment, they come back and then, you know, even for Helene, my guys spent months sending off dry suits to get repaired and to get the [district] trailer back up to where it needed to be," Wheeley said. }The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency is working on a credentialing system for USAR teams across the state. Wheeley wants to see the District 1 team officially recognized with USAR credentialing by TEMA when it's finalized. All of the team's personnel take on task force responsibilities in addition to their positions at their home departments. For Wheeley, having the time and money to come out and train together is vital. "I'm going to be sending these people out. During Helene, until later into the event, I never got anywhere near the water. I was in a command post having to send these guys out to do this work," Wheeley said. "So for me it's important that I see them in action in the training, I see them and have the confidence that if I send them out to do these jobs, that they can do them." Jorgelina Manna-Rea is an environmental reporter for Six Rivers Media through Report For America.