Local firefighters assist after Texas floods

Orange County Fire Rescue’s Lt. Keenan Fitzpatrick joined dozens of others as a part of the Urban Search & Rescue Task Force 4 of Florida to help in the search for those missing as a result of the floods in central Texas. 

Between Friday, July 4, and Saturday, July 5, central Texas had catastrophic flooding that took more than 130 lives. The floods were the deadliest inland floods in the United States since 1976, with damage estimates reaching $18 to $22 billion. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis authorized the state to provide relief to Texas’s emergency teams, deploying the Urban Search & Rescue Task Force 4 of Florida Monday, July 7. The team returned Sunday, July 20.

“We’re just trying to find the people that we can and help the families get a little bit of closure and bring them home,” Fitzpatrick said. 

Task Force 4 includes 10 personnel from the Seminole County Fire Department, 10 personnel from Orange County Fire Rescue Department, eight personnel from City of Orlando Fire Department, as well as civilian K-9 handlers, a civilian structure specialist and a doctor. 

The team is self-sufficient, meaning it has all gear necessary to provide aid, so it doesn’t strain local resources. 

“We take everything with us,” Fitzpatrick said. “We have plenty of water, food. We have first-aid supplies; we carry an AED with us. So no matter how you scale it up or scale it down, whether it’s from the whole team to an individual person, it’s designed to be self-sufficient.”

Fitzpatrick said the mission was quite challenging.

“The big safety message that’s really been driven on this mission has been ‘hydrate, hydrate, hydrate and sunscreen,’” Fitzpatrick said. “And what we’re not really used to is rattlesnakes, so we’ve had to navigate that a little bit. There’s some obstacles and some difficulties there with the terrain. … It’s just a lot of walking. Luckily, we are from Florida, so we’re used to the heat.”

Besides the physical obstacles, the force also had to navigate emotional obstacles.  

“Some of the most challenging things are when you don’t find anyone,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s hard knowing that there’s a lot of people that still have been unaccounted for, and you walk and you search for six hours, and you don’t find anyone or anything that could lead you in the right direction. It’s very frustrating, and it’s hard to do that.”

Fitzpatrick said despite the challenges, every person on the force was committed to providing the necessary help. 

“We all do this job to take care of our communities and be able to help out,” Fitzpatrick said. “But, every now and then, there’s a community that may not be in your area where you’re able to help, and this team gives us that opportunity to be able to go to different communities and help people. I’ve been all over the country. … Without being on this team, you don’t get that opportunity to go to places and really, really help out those communities that really need the help. They’re inundated and they’re overrun, and there’s too much for their local resources to handle. So, it’s nice to be able to go and offer that hand to help.”

Fitzpatrick said he is amazed by the work teams have done in Texas and how they have worked together to help with rescues and recoveries. 

“Something that never ceases to amaze me on these deployments is how people from different agencies can come together and just work together seamlessly,” Fitzpatrick said. “You know, we’re here with people, like agencies from Texas, law enforcement agencies from Texas and by an hour into it, it’s like we’ve known each other our whole lives, and we work seamlessly together. … Three big agencies that do things three completely different ways at a big level, and then you put us all together, and it just doesn’t matter.” 

He said it is an honor to represent Florida and the agency. 

As a message to the community, Fitzpatrick wanted everyone to know how hard agencies are working in central Texas. 

“Every one of them (Task Force 4 members was) here with one thing in mind and the mission and every one of them deserves the most amount of credit that anybody can give them,” he said. “Even though it's not all glamour, it is hard work and it's necessary work.”