When a diabolical hurricane strikes a part of Florida, the rest of the state responds.
Osceola County is doing just that.
Police, fire/rescue and school maintenance teams or crews from the county have, or will be, deployed into areas of Southwest Florida hit hardest by Hurricane Ian's Category 4 winds and flooding storm surge, proving Floridians help Floridians when Mother Nature flexes.
For starters, a strike team from St. Cloud Fire Rescue Department deployed over the weekend, and will be sending updates through its Facebook page. The team assisted with putting out a structure fire on Monday, and since water pressure in Lee County is still not completely restored, the crew had to resort to using the tender to fill the trucks with water to fight the fire.
Per the agency's Facebook page, Strike Team Leaders are Assistant Chief Jovanne Rodriguez and Engineer Raul Ramirez. Others on the team are Lt. Mike Palmer, Engineer Jonathan Bradshaw, Firefighter Ryan Broomell and Firefighter Jonathan Hart. The team deployed with equipment for rope ops, vehicle machinery rescue, and confined space ops.
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Per the Osceola County School District, a team of 10 district maintenance workers are headed into the affected area Thursday, and will return Monday. Schools in Lee and Charlotte counties, the ones heaviest hit by Hurricane Ian's up to 12-foot storm surge and 145 mph winds, are listed as, "Closed until further notice." Estimates are the closure could last three more weeks, or as long as into December.
And, Wednesday morning, a team of 25 from the Osceola County Sheriff's Office Emergency Operations Unit bugged out from the Osceola Emergency Operations Center Wednesday morning, with vehicles, boats and at least one airboat from the Agricultural Marine Unit ready to do "whatever they need" in Lee County for the next week, Sheriff Marcos Lopez said — he's headed down as well.
"We might be in different counties, but there's only 67 Florida sheriffs," he said, noting the unit is part of a team of 1,500 law enforcement personnel descending on the area. "Our guys have been working around the clock, but now they're leaving their homes and families to continue working to help the victims of Hurricane Ian in Southwest Florida," Lopez said.
The Osceola crew in green will be answering service calls for law enforcement issues, picking up the slack for Lee County units, who are very busy with search-and-rescue operations in the devastated areas, in order to "get everything under control," Lopez said.
"Where we're going, it's complete devastation," he said of parts of Fort Myers.
Each agency said there is plenty of personnel left behind to attend to the Osceola communities issues with Ian recovery, such as flooding and law enforcement.
