FEMA still overseeing search and rescue in Texas, Louisiana
Multiple agencies have conducted more than 2,500 missions to help Gulf Coast residents hit by Hurricane Ike.
Search-and-rescue missions for people stranded by Hurricane Ike remained the key priority for the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Monday, two days after the storm slammed into Texas Gulf Coast communities.
FEMA used helicopters operated by the Coast Guard, National Guard units and the Defense Department as well as military trucks capable of working in high water to look for stranded residents. Agency officials said as of Sunday more than 2,500 search-and-rescue missions had been conducted.
The Coast Guard has rescued 204 people to date, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Ayla Stevens, who is based at a temporary Coast Guard command post in Katy, Texas, 29 miles west of Houston. National Guard units from Alabama, California, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas have contributed helicopters to the search-and-rescue missions, Stevens said.
Through Sunday, the Air National Guard had flown 41 sorties and transported 344 people, said Emanuel Pacheco, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau in Washington. Texas National Guard ground forces have more than 1,000 high-water vehicles in the state to handle rescue missions, he said.
Ike also brushed western Louisiana, and the Louisiana National Guard deployed more than 250 high-water vehicles, 40 boats and 20 helicopters for search-and-rescue missions in that state, Pacheco said. Louisiana is still recovering from Hurricane Gustav, whichmade landfall on Sept. 1. Pacheco said that as of Monday, the Louisiana Guard had rescued 340 people.
Another key priority for FEMA on Monday was distributing food and water to the 1.4 million people displaced by the storm, according to Andrew Slaten, a FEMA spokesman at the multiagency Joint Field Office, which is managing the federal government's response in Austin, Texas. Slaten said FEMA pre-positioned the largest amount of food and water stocks in its history in Texas prior to Ike's landfall. Supplies on hand included 4 million meals-ready-to-eat and 4 million bottles of water.
FEMA planned to send the supplies to state and local officials for distribution, and the Transportation Security Administration, which usually is not involved in food distribution, will provide additional support.
About 150 TSA officers, all volunteers, arrived in Houston on Monday morning to assist FEMA with food distribution and relief efforts, said TSA spokeswoman Andrea McCauley. She said before Ike hit, TSA flew in 200 officers to assist in evacuation from George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport, both in Houston.
The Health and Human Services Department dispatched 12 disaster medical assistance teams to work at shelters and with urban search-and-rescue groups in the Texas towns of Beaumont, Galveston and Houston, according to Gretchen Michael, an HHS spokeswoman. The teams, whose members include doctors and paraprofessionals, provide rapid response medical care after a natural disaster.
Army North, the command that handles the service's response to civil disasters, set up its Operational Command Post at Camp Mabry in Austin, headquarters of the Texas Military Forces. Col. Laverm Young, who helped manage the Army's response to Gustav in Baton Rouge, performed the same function at Camp Mabry for Ike, said Don Manuszewski, an Army North spokesman.
Young's deputy, Lt. Col. Travis Grigg, is posted in Galveston to help coordinate the response in that city, which was devastated by Ike. Manuszewski said the only dependable means of communications he has with Grigg is through an Army North emergency response vehicle, which has a built-in satellite communications system. "Once again the ERV has proven its worth," Manuszewski said.