WHAT: Pennsylvania-Task Force 1 (PA-TF1) returns from its two-week deployment to Florida to help communities recover from Hurricane Ian

WHO: Members of PA-TF1
Gov. Tom Wolf
Fire Commissioner Adam K. Thiel
 
WHEN: Wednesday, Oct. 12, sometime between noon-2 p.m. (arrival time is tentative — please check our Twitter account @PhillyFireDept for updates)

WHERE: 6601 New State Road, Philadelphia

Thirty-seven members of PA-TF1 will return to Philadelphia on Wednesday after conducting search-and-rescue operations in Florida communities devastated by Hurricane Ian.

The Task Force is one of 28 federal urban search-and-rescue teams overseen by FEMA. The team is sponsored by the Philadelphia Fire Department and includes PFD members as well as first responders from throughout the region. 

Deployment recap:

• PA-TF1’s convoy of buses, supply trucks and other vehicles left Philadelphia on Sept. 28 and traveled about 600 miles south to its first base Columbia, S.C. in anticipation of Hurricane Ian making a second landfall in South Carolina.
• PA-TF1 was soon reassigned and traveled an additional 650 miles south to hard-hit Lee County, Florida, where Hurricane Ian had made its first landfall. Members spent about a week searching damaged structures in Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel Island.
• PA-TF1 includes technical search specialists, structural engineers, doctors, canines and canine handlers, and experts in hazardous materials and other related fields.
• PA-TF1 left Florida on Monday morning. They stopped overnight in Georgia and will stop again tonight in Virginia before completing their journey home. Several PA-TF1 members traveling separately from the main group will arrive home from Florida on Thursday.