By james art LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — This week, Nevada Task Force 1 is back in the Valley conducting interrogations after an extended deployment.
The city’s search and rescue team includes local first responders from the Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City and Clark County fire departments.
But for most of the past month, they’ve been in the Southeast helping disaster-stricken communities, responding to not just one hurricane, but two.
“Whether it’s needing help delivering boxes of food or water, or moving debris from the road, or providing structural damage assessments so they can help rebuild and get the insurance stuff going, we’re willing to do any of these things. In this case, it was a combination of all of those things,” said crew leader and Las Vegas Fire Battalion Chief Matt Gordon.
In late September, 46 FEMA-funded team members were initially stationed in Florida but were reassigned to Tennessee in response to Hurricane Helin.
The team then went to Florida to position for Hurricane Milton with an additional 35 members joining them.
The group then embarked in North Carolina, still befuddled by Helen, before being demobilized on 18 October.
“At first we thought we were going to Florida. We don’t really need to pack cold weather gear, we’re going down to a hurricane where the weather will be very warm … but then when we get diverted to North Carolina, it’s below zero up there.”
They are meeting again Monday to discuss some of the lessons they learned and how they can be even better prepared the next time disaster strikes a community that needs our help.