MD Task Force 1 Heads To Puerto Rico For Hurricane Fiona Response

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD — Maryland Task Force 1 departed Baltimore/Washington Thurgood Marshall Airport Tuesday morning on a chartered flight to Puerto Rico to assist in the Hurricane Fiona rescue effort.

FEMA activated the task force to respond to the damage and flooding caused by the storm, but bad weather prevented the urban search and rescue team from leaving BWI on Monday as originally planned, according to Pete Piringer, a spokesman with the Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service.

The task force's plane left BWI around 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, and is expected to reach Puerto Rico around 3 p.m.

Although the majority of the 35-member teams comes from MCFRS, it also includes rescue personnel from Howard, Prince George's, and Frederick counties, according to Piringer. The team offers a multifaceted range of expertise, such as water rescue, medical training, and canine handling, both for cadaver and lifeline dogs.

"Some of the incident support personnel and team members have already made their way to Puerto Rico as well," Piringer said.

Related: Hurricane Fiona: What's The FL Forecast After Puerto Rico Pummeled?

After Hurricane Maria in 2017, the federal government provided supplies to Puerto Rico, Task Force Leader Joseph Keefer told WJLA 7 on Monday.

"There's a cache of tools in Puerto Rico ready for us," he said. "We're just bringing some extra stuff that isn't there — search cameras, medical equipment for ourselves, life jackets, water [personal protective equipment] like dry suits and stuff."

Hurricane Fiona made landfall near Punta Tocon, Puerto Rico, Sunday night as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph, and continued to barrage the island with high winds and heavy rains, knocking out power on the entire island (about 1.5 million customers) and "causing catastrophic flooding," according to the National Hurricane Center.

As of 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 80 percent of Puerto Rico was still without power, after hurricane Fiona dumped 30 inches of rain across the island, according to AccuWeather.

The hurricane center said Fiona then made landfall around 3:30 a.m., on Monday in the Dominican Republic with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, National Hurricane Center forecasters said.

AccuWeather meteorologists said there is the potential for Fiona to reach Category 4 status just southwest of Bermuda and east of the Bahamas with sustained winds from 130 to 156 mph.

Fiona is the fifth named storm and the third hurricane of the 2022 hurricane season. Hurricane Danielle peaked at hurricane intensity twice over the open waters of the North Atlantic in early September. Earl was the second tropical storm to strengthen into hurricane force. It reached Category 2 strength over the central Atlantic in early September, AccuWeather reported.