Missouri Task Force 1 deploys to Florida

Missouri Task Force 1 is leaving for Jacksonville, Florida on Friday evening ahead of Hurricane Dorian.

A type three task force, meaning 45 people will be making the trip. The team can do several tasks but will have an emphasis on water rescues. The team is taking six boats, including four hard-bottomed boats and two inflatable boats.

“We can do wide area searches, we can do structural collapse searches, and/or we can do the water rescue thing because of the amount of rain and flooding that this thing could be bringing to Florida,” said Assistant Chief of Missouri Task Force 1 Gale Blomenkamp.

Blomenkamp said the team has been deployed to assist during hurricanes almost yearly for the last three or four years so it is nothing new.

“Right now we’re sitting No. 2 in the national rotation for the central part of the country. But, based on our location, we’re very close to the Gulf Coast, and so we do see a lot of activation for hurricanes,” he said.

A typical deployment is around 14 days. Blomenkamp said if it gets close to that two-week stretch, the Federal Emergency Management Agency starts to rotate teams.

“You start getting into that two-week time frame, you start seeing a lot of safety issues. Teams being fatigued, people need to get back to work,” he said.

The men and women of Missouri Task Force 1 volunteer their time, and many have other jobs.

You can hear more from Blomenkamp below:

Crews from the Missouri Public Utility Alliance will also leave for Orlando, Florida on Saturday morning.

Forty-six utility workers from nine Missouri cities, including Carthage, Columbia, Hannibal, Higginsville, Hermann, Independence, Odessa, Poplar Bluff and Rolla, will respond to possible power outages.

A spokesman from Boone Electric Cooperative said it also has crews on standby to leave for Florida if they are needed.