Coming home after storm
Task Force 4 and ambulance strike teams return after 10 days navigating the aftermath of Hurricane Michael
Rescuers from agencies across Central Florida were reunited with friends and family Friday after spending 10 days in the Panhandle rescuing people in need and clearing debris left behind by Hurricane Michael.
Seminole County firefighter David McDonald, one of the 46 members of FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 4, had a crowd waiting at the USAR Training Facility in Orange County when he arrived: His father, mother, wife and two young kids were all there to greet him.
“He’s been very missed, and he’s been missing a lot,” his wife Morgan McDonald said while holding the couple’s 6-week-old daughter.
McDonald achieved social media fame during his time in the Panhandle, after a picture of him with a Mexico Beach squirrel seeking comfort from the rescue team went viral.
It was a moment of levity during an otherwise solemn mission. “This was one of the most devastating hurricanes to hit the Panhandle if not the state of Florida,” said Joseph Silvestries, Saint Cloud Fire Chief and Region 5 coordinator of Task Force 4. “In the wake of its path it left thousands of homes, people, buildings, displaced and in total destruction.”
Silverstries recently assumed responsibilities as coordinator
after Orange County Fire Rescue Division Chief Mike Wajda was deployed to the Panhandle on Wednesday.
“This is the largest coordinated response to a Florida disaster since Hurricane Andrew,” Wajda said before leaving.
The operation was made up of 140 personnel from 25 different departments across the Sunshine State, which included 12 engine strike teams, seven ambulance strike teams, six water trucks and 60 fire engines.
“To put that last figure into perspective, Orange County, the fourth largest fire and rescue in Florida …has 42 fire (engines,)” Wajda said.
Task Force 4 was made up of 46 men and women from Orange County Fire Rescue, Seminole County Fire Department, Orlando Fire Department and other smaller Central Florida fire agencies.
The task force was deployed onto the Panhandle immediately following Hurricane Michael and began searching through the wreckage of thousands of homes, said Orlando District Chief Craig Huelette, leader of Task Force 4.
In many cases the team was able to recover survivors from collapsed homes, or from under fallen debris.
In other cases, the team retrieved bodies.
“We helped the citizens who did not survive the storm … make it back to their family and to their final resting place,” Huelette said.
Ambulance Strike Team 501 and 502 also made their way home Friday alongside the task force. AST 502, consisting of five medical transport units, was deployed to an emergency center in Panama City and helped evacuate 151 patients, according to Seminole County Battalion Chief Becky Ward, the strike team’s leader.
The hospital’s roof and third floor had been significantly damaged along with water intruding into the first floor. Patients and staff took shelter on the second floor until the storm passed, Ward said.
“(AST) 502 worked through the evening and the following morning transporting pediatric patients, as well as labor and delivery mothers to area hospitals, some of which were over 100 miles away,” Ward said.
K-9 search teams were deployed to quickly search through destroyed neighborhoods.
OCFR Lt. Susan Wesley has been a K-9 handler for 15 years, traveling to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and many other disasters caused by hurricanes, but she said the aftermath of Michael was unlike anything she has seen before.
“It was complete devastation,” said Wesley, who traveled to the Panhandle with her partner, 8-year-old golden retriever Jackson. “It was what we trained for but, it was just complete devastation.”
While the destruction made the the task force’s job difficult, the biggest challenge of coordinating such a massive response was allocating and receiving resources, Wajda said.
“All of these teams are self sufficient while remaining mobile but at some point you’re going to need more resources,” he said. “Getting supplies, food or fuel to these teams, the logistics are really overwhelming. None of the stores in the area are open. Any additional resource or equipment has to come from outside of the region.”
The second biggest challenge the team faced was assisting local agencies with an increased emergency call load. After the storm, many evacuees returned home and some wound up getting hurt, either from hidden debris in flood waters or while trying to remove trees on top of their homes, Wajda said.
“There are some parts where there is no fire department anymore,” he said. “They’ve lost engines in the storm . ... Some departments had their bay doors blown off or a tree has fallen on top of it. ”