NYC sends unit of firefighters to aid victims

A highly trained FDNY task force headed south to lend a hand in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.

Fifteen of the 384 members of the Fire Department’s Incident Management Team were deployed Wednesday afternoon to Tallahassee, Fla., where they will wait until the storm passes.

Ian made landfall as a highly dangerous Category 4 hurricane in southwest Florida’s Charlotte County on Wednesday, with winds estimated at 145 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The hurricane produced a storm surge over 7 feet high before making its way to shore.

“We are going to stage here until possibly tomorrow,” Capt. Jack Bradley told the Daily News. “We’ll see where the storm hits and go down to those areas.”

Earlier Wednesday afternoon, the National Weather Center warned residents who chose to stay behind that the time to evacuate had passed.

“We are bracing for life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds, heavy rainfall and flooding,” Charlotte County Emergency Management said in a tweet. “You should not be outside at this time. All residents should be sheltering in place and be off the roads.”

Florida’s Emergency Operations Center, which handles disaster-related response and recovery, will advise the FDNY team where to head.

The unit is no stranger to devastating storms. Members of it responded to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico — a Category 5 storm that resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths on the island — in September 2017.

“The Puerto Rico fire department was pretty much decimated,” Lieutenant John McCormack recalled. “Their firehouses were destroyed and had significant damage. We went there and helped them restart their communication systems so they could actually reach the firehouses.”

The Incident Management Team is expected to head south of its current location — tents and air mattresses in tow — ready to bunker down in a school or factory where they will sleep in sleeping bags.

“We’re not there when the water is coming in,” McCormack said. “The damage has already been done. It’s a difficult situation.”

Despite the dangers of the storm’s aftermath, he and his colleagues aren’t worried.

“We can do pretty much anything, but it all depends on what they ask us to do,” McCormack said. “We try to complete whatever they ask us to do.”