CART

CART – County Agriculture Response Team

The CART is the umbrella under which the LART and DART Operate, the advisory group for the animal response efforts in our county. Under the States vision, the CART is the response team to provide assistance for Agriculture and animal emergencies in the State. But with little guidance and no guidelines, it was decided that the CART would be the advisory group for planning and response to missions. The CART does however have a number of resources that can be deployed to assist if necessary. These resources were provided by the DHS, through the State via Clemson and State ESF-17.

LART – Large Animal Response Team

The LART is just that, responders trained specifically for technical rescue operations involving large animals/livestock. The LART members also are trained and prepared to assist in CART type deployments as well as setting up and running Pet Shelters for isolated incidents such as hazardous materials incidents, repatriation missions through US Department of State, of pre and post storm pet shelters or recovery centers.

DART – Disaster Animal Response Team

The DART program is designed to train volunteer citizen to assist in Pet Shelter operations with guidance from Animal Care and Control Officials. Our DART Program somewhat mirrors the HSUS outline. But after review of the HSUS outline it revealed that much of the training in the outline was being done in the CERT training course, also provided by Charleston County passed on the program being promoted by DHS and FEMA under the Citizens Corp.

The DART training does require CERT as a prerequisite. Participates must also complete, prior to or during the course FEMA’s IS-10 and 11. Following the first class they are required to complete 4 hours of volunteer work at the SPCA to get experience on Shelter Operations. Only those with real Large Animal Experience, and that have completed FEMA's IS-111 can assist as DART members in Large Animal Recovery Centers.

Those that wanted to have a pony when they were 5 years old, but actually did pet their best friends horse once... does not constitute Large Animal Experience...