Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and high-yield Explosives (CBRNE)-Enhanced Response Force Package, or CERFP.

It’s a long title for an important mission, or in the words of Colorado Army National Guard Sgt. Stephen Delp of the Company B, 147th Brigade Support Battalion – the CERFP’s search and extraction unit – CERFP is “the epitome of a National Guard mission. We have to be ready to answer the call to help anybody, anywhere, anytime.”

CERFP is called upon when there’s a major catastrophe or natural disaster in a populated area. In March, Colorado’s CERFP utilized the nationally-renowned training complex at Muscatatuck Urban Training Complex in Muscatatuck, Ind., for Exercise Vibrant Response, a simulated dirty bomb attack on a civilian populace.

The CERFP’s mission is comprised of three main components: search and extraction team, decontamination and medical.

As the name implies, the search and extraction team rescues victims, sometimes from the rubble of collapsed buildings and vehicles.

“Victim extrication following a structure collapse is a science in itself,” said Delp. “It’s a very serious and technical operation dealing with serious amounts of weight. Concrete can weigh up to 150 pounds per cubic foot. Slabs can weigh upwards up 50,000 pounds. How do we capture that much weight? What’s the strength of the lumber we’re going to use? What’s the angle required? What are you going to anchor that lumber to?”

These are all the questions the team must answer and execute before even gaining entry into the rubble to rescue victims whose survival may just be a matter of fleeting time.

“Edges can shift, things can move,” said Delp. “The rubble pile at ground zero after 9/11 was shifting audibly and visually months after the collapse. We have to capture and support the structure, ensuring it’s safe for us to even enter, and begin the victim extraction process.”

Search and extraction breaks down as so: Five 10-member teams – with each member donning suits equipped with air purifying respirators to protect against alpha and beta radiation – rotate on a work/rest cycle of two to 72 hours in the hot zone shoring the structure, monitoring air quality, entering confined spaces and rescuing victims by any means necessary.

“Colorado CERFP has the best search and extraction team in the nation,” said Delp. “We have nothing but proficient, mechanically-inclined, highly-motivated Soldiers that love this mission.”

Delp, a three-year veteran of the CERFP mission, isn’t only the noncommissioned officer in charge of the search and extraction team. He also volunteers on search and rescue organizations on his own time to include Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in the past and winter tornado relief missions.

“I love the CERFP mission. Ask any one of my guys and they’ll tell you. I live this mission.”