CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Nearly two dozen emergency medical personnel from West Virginia are headed to Florida to be part of the response to Hurricane Irma. The 23 member team with ten ambulances will stage initially in Tallahassee, Florida and assist local authorities with storm preparation and then emergency response.
“We transport bed confined patients to safe areas,” said Wayne Harmon, Chief of Operations for the Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority. “Once the storm is over, we help bring them back to where they belong.”
Convalescent care, according to Harmon, is typically the duty their team handles but occasionally in certain situations they’ll be asked to help cover emergency calls for the local area while regular EMS handle storm response or get some rest.
The team is part of the rapid response unit working under American Medical Resources. It includes seven ambulances from the Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority, two ambulances from Jan-Care in Beckley, and one unit from Logan County EMS.
The team has been deployed on several previous occasions and has responded to three hurricanes over the years, the most recent was Hurricane Sandy. Harmon says it’s often a surreal experience.
“We’ve seen bad storms here, but when you’re seeing 120 plus mile an hour winds and the rains and flooding,” he explained. “We’ve never had it around here.”
The team is prepared to sustain itself for three days with food since they do not know what kind of support they’ll have once in the field.
“Most of the time we’re sleeping in tents or the ambulances. Sometimes we’re going 24 or 30 hours with hardly any rest,” Harmon explained. “You’ll see utter devastation and you’ll endure the heat.”
It’s unknown how long the group will be deployed or what they will encounter as Irma barrels toward Florida.