TEMPLE, Texas — Members of the Waco, Hewitt and Killeen fire eepartments deployed to Louisiana Monday to help assist with the Hurricane Ida response.
"Being able to go to Louisiana and give a helping hand is just another opportunity for us to give back not only to our community, but to the community of Louisiana as well," said Nick Guerrero with Waco Fire.
The fire departments were sent out as part of the Texas Intrastate Fire Mutual Aid System (TIFMAS), according to officials.
TIFMAS requested for 30 engines and five Tender Tanker Fire Trucks from Texas.
Two members from the Killeen Fire Department are also being deployed to Louisiana.
Cpt. Jason Wuest and Fire Rescue Officer Joseph Stiles are headed to the New Orleans area for 14 days with two days of travel. They will be staffing a 3,000 gallon Tender Tanker Fire Truck provided by the Rio Vista Volunteer Fire Department out of Texas according to a news release from the City of Killeen Monday afternoon.
"The call volume is of course really high so they're calling for extra trucks and they're systems aren't working like their water systems so we're bringing extra water with us so if there is a fire we can help handle the emergency," Wuest explained.
First responders were told it could be up to a 16 day assignment depending on need.
Ida made landfall on the same day that Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years ago. Its 150 mph winds tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane to ever hit the mainland.
The hurricane was already blamed for one death: someone was hit by a falling tree in Prairieville, outside Baton Rouge, deputies with the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office confirmed on Sunday.
The power outage in New Orleans heightened the city’s vulnerability to flooding and left hundreds of thousands of people without air conditioning and refrigeration in sweltering summer heat.