Phoenix firefighters head to Texas to help in search after catastrophic Kerrville flood

PHOENIX – With at least 160 people still missing after the deadly Fourth of July floods in Texas, a team of 48 Phoenix firefighters and five dogs headed east Tuesday night to help with the search.

As the firefighters readied their supplies and prepared to depart, cadets walked behind the Phoenix training facility gates to bring them pizza. Families sat in the parking lot to see their loved ones off.

The Phoenix Fire Department’s Arizona Task Force 1 serves as an Urban Search and Rescue Team for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, one of 28 FEMA task forces nationwide. The team specializes in swift water rescue, technical rescue, structural collapse and heavy rescue, hazardous materials detection and emergency paramedicine.

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“We are a fully functioning deployable team that is self-sufficient once we get there, and wherever FEMA needs us to search, we will search for them,” said Capt. Rob McDade, spokesman for the department.

Teams can be mobilized and on the road within eight hours. On Tuesday, the calls went out at 2 p.m., and the caravan carrying the firefighters left the Phoenix Emergency Services Institute fire station in under seven hours.

“Once they fill the roster, they get in and medically check them in. We check their blood pressure, and then we deploy them off into the area of need,” McDade said. “We practice for this, we train for this. The trucks are always at least three quarters of the way filled. We top off the gas for everything, and then we head to the area of need.”

Two of the rescue dogs specialize in live finds, while the other three have been trained to find cadavers.

In Texas, the Phoenix firefighters will report to a FEMA-operated command center for a briefing. They were due to arrive around 9 p.m. local time on Wednesday and to get to work Thursday morning.

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“They might go out in flat water boats. They might go searching in trees. They might look for confined space areas. There might be the infrastructure,” McDade said. “We’re prepared for anything. We don’t know what we’re going to find until we get there.”

With a deadly flood also hitting Ruidoso, New Mexico, near the Texas border, it’s possible the Phoenix firefighters will be called to assist there, McDade said, adding that in the past the team was headed to Florida and re-routed to North Carolina to assist after hurricanes hit those states.

“Nothing’s off the table when you’re with FEMA,” McDade said. “We’re flexible. … Wherever we’re needed, we’ll go.”

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