COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – A group of 45 first responders from around the state of Colorado is in Louisiana, responding to a call for help in light of the aftermath of Hurricane Ida that struck on Sunday, Aug. 29. In that group are five Colorado Springs firefighters.
The group is called Colorado Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue, a task force under the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When FEMA makes the call, crews like CO-TF1 respond to the affected communities.
“It goes hand in hand with what we currently do at the station. We do a lot of technical rescue stuff,” said CSFD Captain Bill Hull, “[We] get to work with different people across the state. You get the rescue ideas and different ways of doing things so, it’s really an education piece. An education piece with the caveat of deploying and helping people.”
For Ida, the call came quickly.
“Friday afternoon an alert went out saying be ready. Friday evening-what happened was-they said they were leaving,” Hull said.
Hull is one of CSFD’s CO-TF1 crew, but he didn’t respond to Ida. CSFD has three teams—red, white and blue—to respond to FEMA’s call. This time around was the White team’s turn, but Hull had responded to Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas three years ago.
“My speculation is they’re in boats right now looking for causalities, looking for people who need to be rescued, just evaluating the overall conditions so commanders can make a decision to mitigate whatever the problems are,” Hull said.
The national strategy that CO-TF1 is a part of responds to emergency declarations of disaster, meaning that FEMA pays the checks.
This is slightly different than when firefighters travel to other states or regions to help in that fight, although Hull says the concept is the same—helping others who need a hand.
“What it shows is we’re all Americans. We’re willing to go wherever and help other Americans. We see it in Afghanistan, right? People sending help from all over to help other Americans and I think that says a lot,” said Hull.
To learn more about the CSFD, click here.
