Members from Massachusetts Task Force 1 came home Tuesday after a nearly week-long response to the flooding in Vermont. Trucks with team members and equipment returned to the Beverly Home Base Tuesday morning. The 45 member unit deployed to Vermont last Monday after the state experienced historic flooding.
“To be in a community on a city street with your local CVS and your Mazda dealership and have a river running downstream cutting off access to people in need is an eye-opening thing,” said Massachusetts Task Force Once, Safety Officer Leah Shatkin.
According to Shatkin, this was one of the most recent deployments where there were a substantial amount of rescues. Rescue specialists, medical and hazmat technicians conducted about 30 rescues of adults and children, and four rescues for cats and dogs.
Some of those rescues included boat operations with members taking on the floodwaters. Shatkin recounted one instances when, “One of those boat rescues included a 98-year-old individual relocated from her trailer park.”
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Members of the task force train year-round to prepare for emergencies. In the past they aided with rescue efforts for hurricanes Harvey and Katrina, as well as the World Trade Center attacks back in 2001. Now, the 200-member team says they’ll take the next few weeks to ensure they are prepared for the next emergency.
“We”re all just very thankful that we all came back healthy, safe and were able to do some good for other individuals."
