INDIANAPOLIS — Hurricane Laura, a mammoth Category 4 storm, is barreling toward the Gulf Coast Wednesday afternoon.
It's projected to be the biggest hurricane to hit that area in 15 years, with a potentially "life-threatening" storm surge. As evacuations are underway, emergency crews, including members of Indiana Task Force 1, are on the ground ready to help.
Twenty-five members of Indiana Task Force 1 left Tuesday night and arrived Wednesday in Alexandria, Louisiana, just northeast of Baton Rouge.
The team's safety officer, Jay Settergren, said this afternoon, they were just seeing the very leading edge of rain hit the area. But locals are telling them to prepare for a storm that could rival Hurricane Katrina.
"Obviously, it's going to be a concern of how fast it's moving and how much rain it drops and that keeps fluctuating a little bit, but they're talking 10-15 inches of rain maybe, so it's really just a waiting game right now to see what actually happens," Settergren said.
Hurricane Laura isn't their only challenge.
Indiana Task Force 1 has never deployed in the middle of a pandemic, which means a whole different approach to protecting people.
"We will wear face masks. We will...we will do social distancing when we can. We have some masks for folks if we're doing rescues, if that's possible to put something on them," Settergren said. "You know, that's a whole new aspect that we have to add on top of just the mental preparation for this type and size of a storm to come in and in talking to the locals, it's gonna be bad. They've had ones that were smaller than this hit here and it was very impactful."
Also challenging, he said, is the evacuation plan in the midst of COVID-19.
"We don't know how many people have evacuated, because with COVID, with the pandemic, they are doing some mandatory evacuations but some is volunteer and, ultimately, we're going to have to see how that all spills out in the end and we won't know that until after the storm passes and the calls for help start coming in," Settergren said.
Indiana Task Force 1 is now at a military installation, awaiting instructions from FEMA on where they're needed most. They'll be working alongside a similar team from Tennessee and the Louisiana National Guard to protect life and property.
