Community Corner

Service is a Team Effort for Barry and Amber Maham

Barry now back from Japan after helping earthquake and tsunami victims

In the afternoon of Friday, March 11, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake occurred off the coast of Japan. Shortly thereafter, a tsunami created by the tremor brought waves over 70 feet high crashing into the northeast Japanese coastline, decimating everything its path.

Within hours of the earthquake and tsunami, half a world away, Lorton’s Barry Maham, a member of the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) unit, was preparing to go to Japan, in much the same way as he had gone to Haiti in January 2010.

By Sunday, after stops in Los Angeles (to pick up another search and rescue team) and Alaska, Maham was in Japan. After an overnight on Misawa Air Force Base, the team was sent near the stricken town of Ofunato. In a little more than a year, Maham had twice found himself in places most people would do anything to avoid and had done so in the name of service.

Find out what's happening in Woodbridgewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

When Maham is called to such duty he goes not just as a member of the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue, but as a husband and father.

Leaving for a mission in a distant land can never be easy on a spouse, but Barry’s wife Amber probably understands what he faces better than most, since she has been a hospital nurse and a volunteer firefighter. In fact, she and Barry met when they both volunteered at Dale City Volunteer Fire Department.

Find out what's happening in Woodbridgewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“I saw things and that kind of helps. When he shares a story I can relate to it better than most people,” Amber said.

Barry had been a firefighter for five years in Fairfax County when he decided he wanted to apply to the elite USAR team. Even though he had received plenty of training and had acquired experience on the job for which there is no substitute, the decision was not an easy one. The idea of helping people on their worst day was never a question, but the toll such service can take on a family is something he knows all too well.

When he was still a child, Barry lost his father, a police officer, who was killed in the line of duty. Even beyond the day-to-day danger of working in public safety was the time away from family, both in training and on missions like the ones in Japan and Haiti.

“He could be called away at a moment’s notice during a wedding, a graduation, a birthday party, something that we think is really important,” Amber said.

“But I had no second thoughts. I support him 100 percent," she said. “There’s nothing more important than helping people in need.”

The support Amber provides is not always easy. With five kids—aged three to 12, including a set of twin girls—she has her hands full even in normal times. But, her children are a pleasant diversion when Barry is out of town.

“I couldn’t imagine being by myself, worrying the whole time he was gone,” Amber, a high grad, said. “Between Girl Scouts, sports and schoolwork with the kids, I don’t have time to be worried.”

When Barry was first considering joining USAR he and Amber were told that being on the team is not for everyone, and that it requires a total family commitment. Some families are not up to the challenge and have seen their marriages struggle or even break up in some cases.

As time went on, Fairfax County has recognized the burden that being on USAR can place on families and they have improved their support network accordingly.

“If I have car trouble or the basement gets flooded, they just send someone to help,” Amber said.

Knowing that things will be taking care of on the home front in his absence is a comfort to Barry while he’s facing circumstances that defy description. While he had a general idea of what to expect based on his time in Haiti, the specifics were unclear until he arrived on the scene.

At first glance, the disasters in both Haiti and Japan were alike in that they were both caused by earthquakes. But that is essentially where the similarity ends. The tsunami in Japan meant that the chance of finding survivors was almost non-existent. If people in the coastal towns weren’t killed by the falling buildings, their lives were taken in the flood.

“The water just devastated entire fishing communities,” Barry said. “I’m sure there were plenty of earthquake-damaged areas in Japan, but we didn’t see any.”

“We did wide searches with K-9s and then cleared the area,” Barry said. His group did not find any bodies. Colleagues from Los Angeles found two and a team from the United Kingdom recovered five.

Compared to Haiti, the areas that Barry worked in Japan were mostly rural countryside. That made a difference. The more densely populated towns in Haiti meant there were more survivors because the collapsed buildings had voids in them where people could breathe. And because there were more survivors, that meant that the USAR team stayed in Haiti longer than originally planned. The team stayed for about a week in Japan.

In between the grim task of searching for bodies and clearing rubble, the USAR team slept at a local high school. Each evening family members received an update on the status of the mission.

While it’s obvious that Barry is appreciative of the opportunity to help those in need, it’s just as obvious how glad he is to be back in Lorton with his wife and kids in their house on Mason Neck.

Barry has returned to his regular job as captain of Fair Oak Fire Station No. 21 in Fairfax, and Amber is, as usual, bringing order to the craziness of raising five kids. Things are back to normal—until the next time Barry is called to where he’s needed most.

Note: Today Barry, along with the other members of the USAR team, will be recognized for their service by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here