After conducting search and rescue/recovery efforts along the Blanco River since May 28, members of Texas Task Force 2 (TX-TF2) returned to North Texas Friday.
Texas' Division of Emergency Management requested TX-TF2 be dispatched to Hays County to assist in the response along the Blanco River after severe flooding devastated the area last month.
TX-TF2, sponsored by Dallas Fire-Rescue but funded by the state, sent a Type III Urban Search and Rescue Team made up of 41 people, primarily firefighters, representing 13 different agencies from the North Texas area. The rescue team also includes a physician from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and several civilians.
DFR said they had 10 members previously deployed to the same location with Texas Task Force 1; six of whom were working with the Swift Water Rescue Strike Team (SWRST). Another worked with the TX-TF1 Helicopter Search and Rescue Team (HSART), in addition to one who worked with TX-TF1’s US&R team doing search and recovery missions in Wimberly.
"Throughout this ordeal, members, with local and federal authorities, conducted operations which necessitated the use of a variety of skills sets to include: rescue, canine search operations, technical search operations, hazardous materials response, medical operations and structural engineering," Dallas Fire-Rescue said in a news release Friday.
TX-TF2 became operational in 2007 and was designed to provide an immediate Type III 28-member Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) response to disasters anywhere within the 16 counties of the North Central Texas Council of Governments. TX-TF2 also provides a Type I 70-member US&R team anywhere in the state of Texas or the region comprising FEMA Region VI.
