DORAL, FLA. (WSVN) - One day after Harvey made landfall in Texas as a Category 4 hurricane, a team from Miami-Dade Fire Rescue is driving from South Florida to help with search-and-rescue efforts.
About 45 members of the department will be heading to Houston, early Sunday. “We’ll be taking our search-and-rescue expertise, search dogs, we’ll have our swift water component for floodwater rescues,” said MDFR Chief Dave Downey.
The team will be bringing equipment that was loaded earlier to assist them. “Equipment to do technical search in collapsed buildings and things like that,” said Downey.
Tropical Storm #Harvey Advisory 27: Harvey Weakening as it Drifts Over Southeastern Texas. https://t.co/VqHn0uj6EM
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) August 27, 2017
As of 11 p.m. on Saturday, Harvey, since downgraded to a tropical storm, was only moving at 1 mile per hour, raising flooding concerns. “I think that the biggest challenge is that the rain continues, so the waters are going to rise,” said Downey. “It’s an ongoing event, unlike a lot of these hurricanes that kind of go through, this is still evolving.”
Several search-and-rescue teams will be gathering in Texas over the next few days. Once the MDFR team arrives in Houston, they will receive instructions as to what part of the state to go next.
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