Local

JFRD sends 40 people to help in aftermath of Hurricane Sally

Members of the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department will be ready to help when the worst of Hurricane Sally moves away from the northern Gulf Coast.

JFRD is sending 40 members of the Urban Search & Rescue and Swift Water teams to assist where they’re needed.

“When they deploy like this, we hold them out of the impact zone, let the storm go through and just as the storm starts to clear we’ll start slipping back in underneath the storm and get into those areas,” says JFRD Chief Keith Powers.

Powers says the team members left just after lunch today and they’ll stay in Tallahassee tonight to wait for word that it’s safe to rush in to help. Right now the plan is to assist local crews in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in Florida, but Powers says the plans can always change when it comes to storms.

“When the state calls and asks for these resources we commit to a 14-day mission, and it could be extended or reduced depending on the need,” Powers says.

He says the first thing they look at when they get that call is whether they can afford to have that many people leave the city, and in this case the city will be OK without the people heading west.


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