By CODY ADAMS
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
Indiana Task Force 1 was on the road Monday heading back home after helping with Hurricane Ian response efforts in Florida.
“As we depart today, we leave the residents of Southwest Florida in our hearts and minds in hopes they will navigate the challenges ahead and build back better and stronger. We pray for the families who lost loved ones and hope you find peace moving forward. Now it’s time to return home to our families who have patiently held down the fort and support us 24/7,” the group wrote Monday on Facebook.
More than 80 members of Indiana Task Force 1 were deployed to Florida last month to assist in search and recovery efforts following Hurricane Ian. The crew arrived in hard-hit Ft. Myers on Sept. 30.
The crew spent many days searching through structures and debris for possible survivors of the storm.
Just last week, the crew shared photos from one of its days in Ft. Myers, where they had walked a combined 51 miles conducting secondary searches.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been touring the damage across the state. He says the efforts of teams like Indiana Task Force 1 have been crucial to the recovery process.
“It’s required a major effort. We’ve had more urban search and rescue teams in Florida since the storm, than at any time in our country’s history since 9/11, so this is a huge effort. We really appreciate it; there have been over 90,000 structures that have been checked, mostly in the very, very hard-hit areas, searching for survivors,” DeSantis said.
Hurricane Ian has claimed the lives of more than 100 people, the majority of them in Florida, making Ian the third deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland this century.