INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Task Force 1 will be deploying ahead of Hurricane Ida.
The unit will act as an urban search and rescue team and is being asked to initially head to Louisiana.
There will be 45 members of Task Force 1 in the deployment and the length of the mission is not known.
The National Hurricane Center upgraded Ida to a Hurricane early Friday afternoon as it swirled toward a strike on Cuba on Friday. The center also warned the storm could hit Louisiana as a Category 3 hurricane on Sunday.
"The forecast track has it headed straight towards New Orleans. Not good," said Jim Kossin, a senior scientist with the Climate Service.
Once over the Gulf, forecasts were aligned in predicting Ida will strengthen very quickly into a major hurricane, reaching 120 mph before landfall in the Mississippi River delta late Sunday, the hurricane center said.
If that forecast holds true, Ida would hit 16 years to the day since Hurricane Katrina landed as a Category 3 storm with 125 mph winds near the riverside community of Buras in Plaquemines Parish, just down the Mississippi from New Orleans. Buras and New Orleans are among the places that show the highest probabilities for getting hit with hurricane-force winds from Ida, the national hurricane center said.
Deployment to Florida condo collapse
Indiana Task Force 1 was most recently deployed to Florida to help with the Surfside condo collapse search, rescue and recovery efforts.
The team spent 16 days searching the rubble.
