SACRAMENTO, Calif. — More than 300 first responders from California are in Florida to help with hurricane response.
Florida has been hit hard by two hurricanes in less than two weeks. Governor Gavin Newsom deployed California Urban Search and Rescue teams out of Southern California a day after Helene hit. Now, more firefighters have been sent to help after Hurricane Milton for a total of 354 people.
Nationwide, there are 28 Urban Search and Rescue Teams taking turns deploying, which is how the leadership of Sacramento’s Task Force 7 got the call.
Derek Parker is an Assistant Chief with Sacramento Fire and is currently working in Orlando.
“We are deployed out on both Hurricane Helene and Milton. There are about six of us, I am here within the planning section; I help coordinate the units and identify where they are going to work and what their work assignments are,” said Parker.
Other members of Task Force 7 leadership sponsored by Sacramento Fire are running logistics and supporting crews with FEMA.
“The scope and scale is kind of hard to describe (with) the amount of damage that’s across the entire state of Florida,” said Parker.
Parker says it's one of the largest responses he’s been involved with, but they've also collected the most data.
“We use programs to make sure we track the property and we put specific icons and we notice a house is damaged or cleared and we do a really good job to present the information in near real time to the decision makers and those decision makers maybe all the way to FEMA branch managers in Washington D.C. or even higher than them at the White House,” said Parker.
Task Force 7 has responded to incidents dating back to 1992. They went to Haiti for the earthquake, most major hurricanes like Katrina, Irma and Harvey, and 9/11 in New York City.
The assistant chief says they expect to be in Florida for at least another 48 hours and longer, if needed. Typically, deployed teams can stay in a location for up to two weeks.
WATCH MORE ON ABC10 | Hurricane Milton: Damage aftermath update
