TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Crews from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission dispatched to help move people to dry ground in Southeast Texas after Hurricane Harvey pounded the area have helped rescue more than 500 Texans, the governor's office announced Thursday.
“The focus is basically getting people out of the flooded homes and flooded areas in the Beaumont area, all the way over to Houston, Texas, and bringing them to dry ground,” FWC Col. Curtis Brown said.
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The state agency quickly deployed 25 officers to set up command bases in Beaumont for search and rescue operations after Gov. Rick Scott late Saturday announced the state's response to Texas' request for emergency assistance.
“Floridians know first-hand how damaging a storm can be for families and communities and how important it is to have the support of nearby states during these challenging times,” Scott said in a prepared statement.
The initial 25 officers and equipment, which included eight shallow draft vessels and four patrol boats, had been staged Friday in Pensacola in anticipation of the need for assistance from the slow-moving but powerful hurricane, Brown said.
Nearly 125 FWC officers, more than 40 boats, 17 high water vehicles, two Mobile Command Centers, and eight shallow draft vessels are currently in Texas to support ongoing search and rescue and disaster response efforts.
“Everything that we're using is basically shallow draft boats or air boats or high-water vehicles, duck boats, that type of equipment,” Brown said. “Unfortunately, the terrain over there right now, it's flooded, it's high-ground flooded, so they're trying to navigate that issue to get to those flooded areas.”
Brown said the agency hasn't set a timeline on how long its officers, picked from throughout the state, will remain in Texas. But he noted they are keeping an eye on systems that could impact Florida.
“Florida's unique, we've been through a lot of hurricanes and our experience here is tested,” Brown said. “Florida is a priority, but our brothers and sisters in Texas need us."
The state officers are not the only assistance Texans are receiving from Florida.
More than 400 Florida volunteers have been deployed to Texas and Louisiana as Volunteer Florida coordinates the activities of 11 disaster relief organizations:
- The Salvation Army has 43 volunteers who have served approximately 1,270 volunteer hours so far as well as an Incident Management Team (IMT) on site in Texas.
- The Southern Baptist Convention will deploy more than 50 volunteers to Louisiana on Friday and will be providing feeding, chainsaw teams, roofing teams and portable showers.
- The American Red Cross has deployed 24 volunteers to Texas and 40 to Louisiana as well as 11 Emergency Response Vehicles.
- Feeding Florida is working with Feeding America to package, store and deliver food to Texas.
- Volunteer Florida is coordinating with local Pensacola business Two Men and a Truck on a nonperishable item drive. Two Men and a Truck is actively collecting donated items from the local community and has volunteered to use their own storage facility to host all donations until it is` possible to make the trip to Texas. Drivers have also volunteered to use their trucks and time to make the trip.
- Volunteer Florida is also coordinating with national manufacturer Kellogg’s, which has donated 200 trucks of food items, to deploy food items to areas in need.
- Volunteer organizations are asking those wishing to help to donate to a recognized, non-profit organization operating in Texas. A list of agencies can be found at www.nvoad.org