Battalion Chief Tim Smith and Lt. Jason Tanner returned to the Loveland Fire Rescue Authority’s Station 6 Wednesday after being gone for a week, traveling to Louisiana to help those affected by Hurricane Laura.
Hurricane Laura made landfall around 1 a.m. Aug. 27 in Louisiana with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour, “devastating southern Louisiana communities for miles,” according to CNN.
CNN reported that after going through parts of Louisiana and Texas, Laura led to the deaths of six people and caused massive, widespread wind damage.
Smith and Tanner with Colorado Task Force 1, along with other state task forces with the Federal Emergency Management Agency Urban Search and Rescue team, traveled to several different towns and parishes in Louisiana to aid those affected by the hurricane.
During their time in Louisiana, Smith, Tanner and the other teams completed a wide variety of aid tasks, from helping community members to intelligence gathering and more.
“When you go down with 80 people there is a ton of work that they can accomplish,” Smith said.
Smith said that Colorado Task Force 1 is unique because it can pull together many firefighters to help around the country, no matter the location or the disaster.
“It really doesn’t matter where it is,” Smith said. “Our job is urban search and rescue but at the same time it is how can you help out that community that we are being sent to.”
Greg Ward, division chief for the LFRA, said that for the Loveland Fire Rescue Authority itself, operations like this are important for a number of reasons. For one, they provide experience for officers in dealing with natural disasters, so if one were to happen in the state they would know better how to handle it.
He added that it is important for them to be a part of a system that has helped the city of Loveland before, such as during the flood in 2013.
“It is important that we participate because we have utilized those services and those firefighters from other parts of the country right here in Loveland for the same types of events,” Ward said.
Tanner, who was also affected by the flood, resonated this point.
“It really uplifts your spirits and you can see that in people’s faces and they will tell it to you when you are talking to them out there on the street,” Tanner said. “It is important to show that human side and that support that does exist out there.”
Ward also said work like this can have a deep impact on the communities that are being helped.
“What really makes the connection to the people is the team visiting with members of the community and saying ‘how can we help you?,’” Ward said. “Doing the things that aren’t necessarily the technical search and rescue, it is more about them being there to support in any way we can.”
Smith said for those on the ground, operations like this show something very powerful: Americans coming to help Americans.
“It makes them feel like they matter, that they are important, not just in their neighborhood and their community, which they probably already understand,” Tanner said. “Like (Smith) said, they are an American and we all come together from wherever we are regardless of where (we) are from.”