Roanoke now has its own swift-water rescue team.

The team is based at Fire Station No. 6 in Southeast Roanoke. During Wednesday's floods, the team responded to eight calls and made three evacuations, said Capt. Todd Stone.

"Roanoke city has always been prone to flooding," Stone said. Flooding and swift-water rescue are the most common problems faced by the city's special operations division

Roanoke Fire-EMS Battalion Chief Audie Ferris oversees the special operations division, and Stone is a member of the team.

About 200 Americans die each year in flooding or swift water, Stone said. And would-be rescuers make up about 10 percent of those fatalities, he said.

"Swift water is so dangerous and unpredictable," Stone said. "It only takes 2 feet of moving water to lift a vehicle up and carry it away."

And now the city has done something about it. Twenty-three firefighters throughout Roanoke have been trained as swift-water rescue technicians, Stone said. They were taught by Salem's swift-water rescue team, Stone said, and they train monthly.

Appropriate training is essential for swift-water rescue, Stone said.

The team has two boats. One is a former military boat with a motor that can be used when rescue workers need power to make a rescue in fast-moving water, Stone said. A second inflatable boat can be used in very rough waters, Stone said. The teams got the first boat, which was worth almost $27,000, used for about $2,500. They bought the inflatable boat new for $3,200, Stone said.

Three people staff the motorboat, Stone said: a spotter in front to warn of oncoming debris; a rescue swimmer in the middle to pull a victim into the boat and provide care; and an operator in the back to run the motor. Everyone trains to be in all three positions, Stone said.

An additional five rescue workers are required to paddle the second boat, Stone said.

To minimize potential danger, rescue tasks are done in a certain order. The sequence is called "reach, throw, row and go."

First, rescue workers try to reach a victim with a stick, ladder or rope, for example. If the person is too far away for that, rescue workers try to throw something for the person to hang onto.

If they still can't reach the person, rescue workers will row out to the victim. If they can't rescue the victim that way, they may "go" - which means try to swim out to the person, Stone said.

If that doesn't work, depending on the situation, rescue workers might call in a helicopter, Stone said.

One of Stone's main concerns is that the team comes home safely.

That issue is close to Stone's heart, because a friend of his who worked for the Lynchburg Police Department drowned in 1996 when he tried to rescue a motorist who was stranded after a dam burst.

Stone shook his head as he recalled some of the risks he and other rescue workers took before they got proper training, such as wearing heavy gear that could have weighed them down in a water rescue.

A rescue worker is four times as likely to die in a swift-water rescue as in a fire, Stone said.

But "the more we train, the better chance we have of coming home in the morning safely," Stone said.