A specialty team within Missouri Task Force 1, a division of the Boone County Fire Protection District, has been deployed to Hurricane Ian. The Disaster Situational Awareness and Reconnaissance (DSAR) Team was requested last night through an Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) from the State of Florida to the State of Missouri. The team consists of one team leader, two small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) drone pilots and one geographic information system (GIS) specialist. The equipment deployed included seven sUAS, printers, plotters, wide area search data collection devices, GIS server and support equipment along with two vehicles for team transport. This deployment is not anticipated to exceed 10 days. The team should arrive in Gainesville, FL around 7:00 pm EST. They will remain there until a mission assignment is received.
The MO-DSAR Team was established in 2017 with funding provided by the State of Missouri. The purpose of the team is to quickly respond to disasters within the State of Missouri and provide damage assessments, disaster mapping, wide area search and situational assessment capabilities to assist with managing, and recovering from the disaster. The first real test of this team came in May of 2019 when an EF3 tornado cut a swath through Jefferson City, MO. The team was able to provide Jefferson City officials with immediate situational assessment and all mapping products of the area searched by MO-TF1 and the tornadoes path in less than 12 hours.
EMAC is first and foremost a state-to-state compact; EMAC is a national interstate mutual aid agreement that enables states to share resources during times of disaster. EMAC acts as a complement to the federal disaster response system, providing timely and cost-effective relief to states requesting assistance from assisting member states who understand the needs of jurisdictions that are struggling to preserve life, the economy, and the environment. EMAC can be used either in lieu of federal assistance or in conjunction with federal assistance, thus providing a “seamless” flow of needed goods and services to an impacted state. The EMAC has strict parameters that are negotiated and accepted by each state. The requesting state ultimately reimburses the providing state.
Two other members of MO-TF1 have been deployed as part of the Incident Support Team. These members were originally deployed to Puerto Rico and were reassigned to Hurricane Ian in Florida on September 25th.