MIAMI (WSVN) - As Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, Friday night, the City of Miami Fire Rescue and a special task force are on standby to help.
Crews from the Urban Search and Rescue Florida Task Force 2 are on standby and prepared in case they are needed in Texas. The task force, a swift-water rescue team, are specially trained to navigate and carry out rescues in turbulent water.
In the event that there is a great need for rescue operations after Harvey, Task Force 2 will be one of the many across the U.S. headed to Texas.
“We gotta make sure we bring enough food, enough water …” said City of Miami Emergency Management Asst. Fire Chief Pete Gomez as he gave 7News a tour of the department’s busy warehouse.
Crews are loading supplies and equipment in preparation for a rescue mission that could last up to two weeks.
“This is a very dangerous job,” said Gomez, “so everybody that’s gonna be deployed on this particular deployment is what we call ‘swift-water training.’ It’s specialized training. We send them to special training sites in North Carolina and Georgia, where there’s actual swift water, where there’s running rivers, and we’re able to train them in operation of these boats.”
These crew members are highly skilled in navigating turbulent waters in boats as well as in specialized big trucks.
“We call them our ‘high-water response vehicles,'” said Gomez.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue crews are also ready to respond.
“We stand always ready, proud to serve, always vigilant,” said Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Division Chief Jeff Strickland.
For members of Task Force 2, the call can’t come soon enough.
“We know we are out there helping people. We are actually bringing people relief, so it’s a great experience for our personnel,” Gomez said.
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