A team of Bermuda's frontline emergency service workers are preparing for one of their most daunting tasks ever - an assignment to Ground Zero in New York.

Ten members of the Island's Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) team are due to fly out to Manhattan to help support volunteers clearing the World Trade Center site and their families.

The first team, including three Police officers, the Police welfare officer and the leader of the CISM team, will fly out on Sunday and spend a week based out of New York Police headquarters, where their brief will be to act as crisis intervention.

A second team, including staff from both King Edward VII Memorial and St. Brendan's hospitals, will be on standby if they are needed to fly out later this month.

Yesterday, the ten members of the CISM team preparing to go met with The Royal Gazette to explain their roles and their feelings prior to taking up their posts in one of the world's largest clear-up operations.

And everyone agreed their overriding emotions were apprehension, pride and a sense of honour.

CISM team leader Doris DeCosta said they were asked to help by the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, of which they are affiliated.

She said: "A lot of teams from within the US have been providing support to New York, but I think a lot of them are now stretched and they have requested outside help.

"I think we all feel very honoured to have been asked to take part. Bermuda is very small and we never expected to be called upon.

"We will be having a lot of one-on-ones with volunteers at Ground Zero and we expect that we may be needed to talk to families and spouses as well. Our role will be to be there, offer support to New York and its Police officers with incident-related stress. It may be related to other incidents besides Ground Zero.

"We don't really know what to expect but we will be prepared for whatever we have to face."

She thanked the Ace Foundation and the Bermuda Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist Church for providing the financial backing to enable the group to go to New York.

Police Inspector Tracy Adams said he believed it was going to be an experience he would remember for the rest of his life.

"I'm not sure what to expect, but we are going to be prepared to face whatever situation is presented before us," he said.

"We realise that the volunteers have been working at Ground Zero for some months now, and the stress may well be getting to them in various ways. We will be there to help the volunteers talk about how they feel, and to make sure that the right help is made available.

"But I think we are also going to be supporting each other because we are all going to experience difficult things."

The stress management teams could also be expected to offer support to command staff, be involved in demobilisations, defusings, debriefings and support consultations.

They will be among a total of 90 CISM teams working at Ground Zero during the month of March alone - amounting to five a week.

Police welfare officer Mira Ingemann is the only one of the ten Bermuda members who has been to Ground Zero. She was there at the weekend and said she was shocked at what she found.

She said: "The magnitude was beyond what I have imagined and what I saw on TV. The impact was huge and people in New York are still talking about it (September 11) as though it was yesterday.

"I think the stress is really starting to have an impact. The day I arrived in New York, the news stated that they had retired 200 firefighters due to respiratory problems."

She said she also hoped Bermuda's CISM members could learn a great deal from their experiences and bring them back to the Island to help the CISM team expand and develop.

She added: "From my point of view, Police has only had a CISM team for a year, and at the moment, the whole set up in Bermuda is a bit fragmented. This opportunity will educate the public and the emergency services about the necessity of having a disaster team."