After spending six days in Puerto Rico assisting with search and rescue efforts following Hurricane Fiona, the 45 members of the Lincoln based Nebraska Task Force 1 returned home on Sunday.
Now they are regrouping and preparing for a possible call to Florida. “Knowing what’s out in the Atlantic and other hurricanes that may be behind that, we want to get back to our warehouse here and get everything in an operational state of readiness so we’re ready to go to the next,” says Captain Dan Ripley, commander of the task force.
Ripley says they are reorganizing their equipment from the Puerto Rico trip and loading it into semi’s, box trucks and small vehicles. “We want to go help people in their time of need. That’s our priority,” Ripley says. “It’s what we want to do. We never want to see something bad happen to someone, but when that bad thing does happen we want to be able to go out to help them and our task force is prepared, motivated and trained to go out and do that.”
Hurricane Ian is barreling toward Cuba and is on track to hit Florida’s west coast later this week.
(Photo: Lincoln Task Force 1)