Hurricane Laura: Fairfax County Search And Rescue Team Deployed

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — Virginia Task Force 1, an urban search and rescue team sponsored by Fairfax County Fire and Rescue, left Thursday to assist with response to the Hurricane Laura aftermath.

The 45-person team was deployed to the Gulf Coast as part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response. Another team responding from the DC region is Maryland Task Force 1, which includes several staff from the Prince George's County and Howard County fire departments.

Hurricane Laura made landfall around 1 a.m. Thursday near Cameron, Louisiana approximately 45 miles south of Lake Charles, Louisiana, bringing with it peak wind gusts of up to 132 miles per hour. Weakened from its powerful Category 4 status since it made landfall, it has been downgraded to a tropical storm and is located over western and central Louisiana along the Texas state line. The storm is forecast to become a tropical depression by Thursday night.

The storm has battered Louisiana with life-threatening storm surges, damaging winds and rainfall spreading inland. Water levels were elevated across the coast in Texas and Louisiana with flood waters not expected to recede for days where the surge penetrated further inland.

Photos posted on social media showed homes and buildings with broken-out windows and partially flattened structures. Lake Charles, Louisiana, appeared to be badly hit by the storm. Flash flooding is expected to continue in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, while heavy rains and flash flooding are forecast to spread further northeast as the storm moved towards the mid-Atlantic.

According to U.S. News, search and rescue operations are underway, but widespread deaths have not been identified so far in Louisiana and Texas. One fatality was confirmed in Louisiana, where a tree fell onto a home and killed a 14-year-old girl.

Virginia Task Force 1 has assisted with responses to other hurricanes in past years, including Hurricane Dorian in 2019, Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017, and Hurricane Matthew in 2016. It has also helped with international responses to disasters.