Montgomery County Sends Two Disaster Specialists to Haiti

Montgomery County Sends Two Disaster Specialists to Haiti

Montgomery County’s Fire and Rescue Service is sending two disaster specialists to Haiti to help with recovery efforts in the wake of Tuesday’s devastating earthquake. A communications specialist and a command specialist from the County’s Incident Support Team (IST) have been deployed, and Montgomery County’s Urban Search and Rescue Team (USAR) is currently on standby, awaiting orders from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

To date, FEMA has called up six USAR teams from around the nation to respond to the disaster in Haiti. MDTF-1, Montgomery County’s USAR team, is on standby and prepared to depart within hours should FEMA require an additional team.

The Montgomery County USAR team consists of 210 individuals who are highly skilled in urban search and rescue operations. It is likely that if called by FEMA to respond, 80 of the County’s USAR team members will be deployed to Haiti to conduct building to building searches for survivors and victims.

“We all need to do as much as we can to help our neighbors in Haiti who are in such critical need,” said County Executive Isiah Leggett. “I urge Montgomery County residents to support humanitarian efforts to save lives and help feed and shelter survivors by contributing to relief efforts”.

Anyone interested in making a donation can find information on the Montgomery County Volunteer Center’s website at www.montgomerycountymd.gov/volunteer.

Providing assistance to Haiti is not new to Montgomery County’s Fire and Rescue Service, which trained the Haitians in urban search and rescue as recently as October.

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Release ID: 10-024
Media Contact: Donna Bigler 240-777-6507