Monday, September 02, 2019

Missouri Task Force 1, Utility Crews Go to Florida to Provide Emergency Assistance

Missouri Task Force 1 is one of 28 urban search and rescue teams in the U.S. that stand ready to respond to emergency situations across the country. The team consists of 210 first responders from all over Missouri, 45 of which are deploying to Florida.

William Skipworth at The Columbia Missourian provides added detail:
"The task force is bringing a convoy of three semitrucks, five pickup trucks, a van, an excursion command vehicle, a bus and some support vehicles. They’ll be bringing six boats for water rescue, which they believe will be one of their main duties in Florida.

Along with the crew will be two black labs in their K9 unit. These dogs will assist in rescuing people in smaller hard-to-reach areas and more unstable buildings.

Utility crews from Missouri, including Columbia, and Arkansas also were preparing to head to Orlando, Florida, on Saturday morning to respond to likely power outages. A total of 46 utility workers from the two states were scheduled to deploy, according to a news release from the Missouri Public Utility Alliance."
Crews from as many as 20 other states were expected to join them in Florida.

As of 8PM Monday, NOAA reports,
"...the eye of Hurricane Dorian was located near latitude 26.8 North, longitude 78.4 West. Dorian remains nearly stationary just north of Grand Bahama Island.  A slow west-northwestward motion is expected to resume overnight and continue into early Tuesday.  A turn toward the northwest is forecast by late Tuesday, with a northeastward motion forecast to begin by Wednesday night.  On this track, the core of extremely dangerous Hurricane Dorian will continue to pound Grand Bahama Island into Tuesday morning.  The hurricane will then move dangerously close to the Florida east coast late Tuesday through Wednesday evening and then move dangerously close to the Georgia and South Carolina coasts on Wednesday night and Thursday.

Maximum sustained winds are near 140 mph (220 km/h) with higher gusts. This intensity estimate is based on data from the NOAA and Air Force Hurricane Hunters.  Dorian is a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.  Although gradual weakening is forecast, Dorian is expected to remain a powerful hurricane during the next couple of days.

Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 45 miles (75 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 150 miles (240 km).  Sustained winds of 57 mph (93 km/h) with a gust to 68 mph (109 km/h) was recently reported at a NOAA Coastal Marine observing site at Settlement Point on the west end of Grand Bahama Island.

The minimum central pressure of 942 mb (27.82 inches) is based on data provided by the NOAA and Air Force Hurricane Hunters."
That is extremely low mercury. Good luck and God bless.

H/t: John Combest