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Maryland Task Force 1 departed for Hawaii Wednesday morning.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. — Emergency crews from the D.C. region are headed to Hawaii to help following devastating wildfires there. Maryland Task Force 1 was expected to leave for Hawaii Wednesday morning to assist with search and rescue.
About 80 search-and-rescue crews from Maryland will be on the ground in Hawaii working with FEMA, according to Montgomery County Fire and Rescue spokesperson Pete Piringer.
So far, the wildfires have killed at least 106 people.
A week after the fires started, some residents still had intermittent power, unreliable cellphone service and uncertainty over where to get assistance.
Just two victims have been named so far, while the county said it has identified three more and will release the names after notifying the next of kin.
“It’s going to be a very, very difficult mission,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services deputy assistant secretary Jonathan Greene said. “And patience will be incredibly important because of the number of victims.”
A portable morgue unit arrived Tuesday morning with more than 22 tons of supplies and equipment needed for victim identification and processing remains, such as mortuary examination tables and X-ray units.
Crews using cadaver dogs have scoured about 32% of the area, the County of Maui said in a statement Tuesday. The governor asked for patience as authorities became overwhelmed with requests to visit the burn area.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier renewed an appeal for families with missing relatives to provide DNA samples. So far 41 samples have been submitted, the county statement said, and 13 DNA profiles have been obtained from remains.
The governor warned that scores more bodies could be found. The wildfires, some of which have not yet been fully contained, are already the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century.
MD-TF1 responds as a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force to natural and man-made disasters as a part of the Federal Disaster Response Plan. The plan incorporates 12 emergency support functions (ESF) including Urban Search and Rescue (ESF-9). There are 28 Federally funded US&R Task Forces across the Continental United States.
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