MCFR chief details agency’s aid for Florida, North Carolina after Hurricane Helene

[Marion County Fire Rescue]

Members of Marion County’s emergency communications team have been deployed to Asheville, North Carolina to provide aid in the wake of Hurricane Helene causing devastating impacts to the community.

On Sept. 29, the Marion County Public Safety Communications Telecommunicator Emergency Response Team (TERT) deployed six people to Asheville to work in the city’s 911 center, said Marion County Fire Chief James Banta.

The personnel join four telecommunicators from Ohio to conduct emergency call-taking and dispatch for a 14-day deployment.

“As of Tuesday, they’re there operating, and it’s important to note that one of the Asheville Communication Center personnel is missing—one of their employees is still not accounted for,” Banta said to the Marion County Commission on Tuesday.

The agency also deployed members to take part in the Florida Incident Management Team Task Force 8, of which MCFR Deputy Chief Graff is the division supervisor.

Task Force 8 was deployed to Cecil Field in Jacksonville on Sept. 26 to assist the Florida National Guard in conducting helicopter search and rescue missions. The task force was sent to Steinhatchee, Keaton Beach and Deckle Beach in Taylor County the following day.

“During the storm, we had many calls (locally) for trees on houses and things like that, although we didn’t have anybody trapped and we didn’t have any significant injuries throughout the storm,” Banta said. “And we had a lot of requests for power outages and issues with power.”

Levy County expressed its gratitude to MCFR for assistance in an incident on Sept. 27, for transports made by Black Hawk helicopters provided by Graff through his position on the task force with the state, Banta said.

“They had one incident in the early morning hours of Friday morning where they had a report of 72 individuals that were cut off from the mainland, that were trapped and needed evacuation out,” Banta said. “They received three Black Hawk helicopters to evacuate those people out of their community.”

Task Force 8 has since returned home on Sept. 30, while Graff remains deployed.

Chaplain Joe LoCognada was also deployed to Tallahassee as a state chaplaincy coordinator with the Florida Firefighter Safety and Health Collaborative during the storm, Banta said.

Additionally, Fire Marshal Ken McCann and two of his staff are currently preparing to deploy to Pinellas County to support the conduction of building inspections in the wake of the storm.

“As we start moving into the recovery efforts, one of the things that they need to do is inspect buildings before they turn the power on, so they’re looking for a lot of inspectors with those qualifications to inspect buildings,” Banta said.