Hurricane Michael Search and Rescue Operations, Day 1

Tweet

Our disaster recovery team, Florida Urban Search and Rescue Team, Task Force 8, was activated ahead of Hurricane Michael's landfall, and staged ourselves last night just outside of the state's capital, Tallahassee. Today was day one of our seven day mission, and the team made it's way down to Wakulla to set up operations at Wakulla High School. While there, we were teamed up with the Florida National Guard and tasked with making our way toward the coast toward the small town of Carabelle. The Guard would be working slightly ahead of us, clearing roads and performing structural inspections of roadways and bridges while our team performed search and rescue operations. The goal is to work our way through Carabelle, then to Appalachicola, and ultimately making our way to Mexico Beach, one of the hardest hit areas in the Florida panhandle. The damage is extensive, and is almost as bad as the damage from Hurricane Andrew that hit south Florida in the early 90s. Houses, buildings and structures aren't just damaged from the hurricane, they are simple gone. Not there. Flattened to nothing. Thankfully, most people along the coast evacuated, or else the death toll would have been much, much higher. Looking at the carnage created by this storm, I can't imagine anybody trying to stick around and ride out the storm. The team is going to be quite busy over the next week, and we will be working long days. There's no power here, so the only power we have is the portable power we brought with us. Due to recovery operations, and lack of electricity, my time may be extremely limited here, but I will try to pop in when I can and give updates. Please keep everyone in your thoughts and prayers. There are a lot of families out there that still don't know that they have no homes or communities to go back to. Literally everything has been destroyed. This hurricane was a bad one.