This National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite image taken at 10:50 a.m. ET Tuesday shows Hurricane Milton just off the Yucatán Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico.
Provided photo
Indiana Task Force One is being redeployed to Florida ahead of the Hurricane Milton.
The state’s Federal Emergency Management Agency-designated urban search and rescue task force announced Tuesday they were being demobilized from western North Carolina — where they were assisting in the response to severe flooding caused by Hurricane Helene — and being re-assigned to Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton’s landfall in the state Wednesday night. IN-TF1 has been deployed for over three weeks to assist in disaster responses, and Tuesday’s news prolongs their deployment.
Eighty members of the task force had left Indiana as part of a Type 1 deployment. A Type 1 deployment is a full deployment of the task force, providing full rescue capabilities, including hazmat, medical, K-9s and structural specialists.
Task force members remain in “good spirits, healthy and prepared for their new assignment.” With the deployment of several additional teams and support personnel since Helene arrived, there are approximately 100 members of IN-TF1 assisting with the two storms, officials said.
Local first responders deployed are Lt. Joe Kipfer, a rescue specialist from the Bargersville Community Fire Department; firefighter Daniel McElyea, a rescue specialist from the Franklin Fire Department; and firefighter Michael Combs and paramedic Chelsea Spina, a communications specialist and a medical specialist, respectively, from the White River Township Fire Department.
As of Oct. 7, over 107,000 “FEMA waypoints” were recorded across five states, amongst the task force teams that responded in Helene’s aftermath. IN-TF1 was directly responsible for 421 of those, task force officials said.
A waypoint is any structure, vehicle, body of water, land area or pile of debris searched for victims or injured. For perspective, some of the debris piles IN-TF1 has seen were over 300 feet high and 30 yards in length. Searches of bodies of water included Sonar technology, boat-based searches and bank searches assisted by live-find and human-remain K-9s, officials said.
With Milton’s formation, Bargersville Fire Deputy Chief Mike Pruitt, an IN-TF1 spokesperson, left for Florida as part on an additional deployment earlier this week. An unknown number of personnel from the Greenwood Fire Department have also been deployed.
For the redeployment, IN-TF-1 will relocate to Georgia — outside of the hurricane cone —and prepare for deployment to the areas as needed once the storm passes through. It is unknown when task force members may return at this time, officials said.
Almost the entirety of Florida’s west coast was under a hurricane or tropical storm warning as the Category 4 Milton and its 155 mph winds spun just off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, creeping toward the state and sucking energy from the Gulf of Mexico’s warm waters. With the storm expected to remain fairly strong as it crosses Florida, the hurricane warnings were extended early Tuesday to parts of the state’s east coast.
Milton’s center could come ashore Wednesday night in the Tampa Bay area, which has a population of more than 3.3 million people. The county that’s home to Tampa ordered areas adjacent to the bay and all mobile and manufactured homes to be evacuated by Tuesday night.
The National Hurricane Center downgraded Milton early Tuesday to a Category 4 hurricane, but forecasters said it still posed “an extremely serious threat to Florida.” Milton intensified quickly Monday, becoming a Category 5 storm for a short time.
Forecasters warned the sea could surge as high as 15 feet at Tampa Bay, leading to evacuation orders for beach communities all along the coast. In Florida, that means anyone who stays is on their own and first responders are not expected to risk their lives to rescue them at the height of the storm.
Tampa Bay has not been hit directly by a major hurricane since 1921, and authorities fear luck is about to run out.
President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Florida, and the White House announced Tuesday that he would postpone a trip to Germany and Angola to monitor Milton, “given the projected trajectory and strength” of the storm. U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor said 7,000 federal workers were helping in one of history’s largest such mobilizations.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 8 with new information from Indiana Task Force 1 about their deployments.
