Indiana Task Force 1 ordered to Tallahassee for search and rescue operations
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indiana Task Force 1 has arrived in Suwannee County, Florida, to help with search and rescue efforts following Hurricane Helene.
Suwannee County is roughly halfway between Tallahassee and Jacksonville.
“The team was awakened in the wee hours of the morning to begin an immediate move toward the Tallahassee region,” Indiana Task Force 1 said Friday morning on Facebook.
Whether INTF-1 remains in Suwannee County all day Friday is unclear. In a Facebook post, the team said that locations of its assignments can change by the hour based on the needs of nearby communities.
Indiana Task Force 1 was activated earlier this week by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help with storm response. The search-and-rescue team left for the Florida Panhandle on Tuesday, was in place by Wednesday, and spent much of Thursday preparing equipment and supplies.
Suwannee County, Tallahassee, and other areas along Florida’s northwestern coast were battered by Helene, which roared ashore around 11 p.m. Thursday as a large and dangerous Category 4 hurricane and has since weakened to a tropical storm.
Ryan Cusack, a trained search-and-rescue operator with the Crown Point Fire Department, is one of the 80 members of Indiana Task Force 1 who will be on the ground in Florida on Friday.
Cusack’s partner is a Labrador retriever, News 8’s Danielle Zulkosky reported Tuesday.
“His job is to find survivors after disaster,” Cusack said. “Specifically, he looks for survivors that might be too weak or even unconscious, that are unable to call out for help, and when he finds them he starts to bark and that’s what alerts us to the presence of the victim so we can go and rescue them.”
Forecasters say Helene will continue to weaken while moving farther inland and eventually turn toward Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana. Rain is expected for much of the day Friday, with intensity increasing in the afternoon.
A high wind warning was issued early Friday morning for central Indiana, with wind advisories to the north and south, Storm Track 8 Meteorologist Marcus Bailey says.
Windy conditions will increase throughout the day, with gusts of more than 60 mph possible Friday afternoon and evening in the high wind warning area.
