Task Force 1 heads home after Dennis

Missouri Task Force 1, an urban search and rescue team, is returning to Boone County early after Hurricane Dennis left minimal damage and no deaths when it hit the Gulf Coast over the weekend.

The task force received deployment orders Friday and left at 11:15 a.m. Saturday for Meridian, Miss., said Boone County Fire Protection District Captain Gale Blomenkamp. They were given orders Sunday to move to Hattiesburg, Miss. On Monday at 1 p.m., the task force receive demobilization orders and expects to return by noon today.

Normally when deployed, Missouri Task Force 1 remains in affected areas for 10 days. They are then re-evaluated and orders are given to either remain or return home, Blomenkamp said. Dennis failed to create the damage expected when the storm weakened to a Category 1 storm, which produced 80 mph winds.

“They are not seeing the magnitude of damage that they saw with (Hurricane) Ivan,” said Doug Westhoff, the Task Force leader who was deployed with the team. “They are not seeing any mission tasking for search and rescue people.”

Missouri Task Force 1 is not the only search and rescue team being removed from the area. When the storm hit the coast Sunday, there were nine urban search and rescue teams activated.

On Monday, Missouri Task Force 1 was one of only three teams still in the area, all of which received demobilization orders Monday, Westhoff said.

While in Mississippi, the task force remained in a state of readiness, but never got deployed for work.

“After damage assessments were done, they had no work for us to do,” Blomenkamp said.

Missouri Task Force 1 consists of three teams of 72 people. Hurricane Dennis was determined to be a type three, or light force classification by FEMA, which deployed 34 people from Boone County to the area, Blomenkamp said.

Missouri Task Force 1 is a division of the Boone County Fire Protection District and one of 28 urban search and rescue teams operating under the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Blomenkamp said. It was deployed to the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and in 2003 they were sent to Virginia to aid with search and rescue from Hurricane Isabel.

This was the first time Missouri Task Force 1 was deployed since September 2003 for Hurricane Isabel.