Hamilton EMS personnel returned Friday, May 21st, following a three-day deployment to southeast Texas for rescue flood operations. Due to the recent heavy rains and saturated soils, many areas of south and southeast Texas have suffered major flooding, especially along major river basins near the Texas Gulf Coast.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott activated many state resources including Texas Military Forces, Texas Department of Public Safety, and Texas Parks and Wildlife for state disaster response. In addition, at the request of the Governor, the Texas Division of Emergency Management sent out a state-wide request for local fire and EMS departments to deploy emergency resources to affected areas and assist those impacted with flood rescues, evacuations, and other emergency responses.
Hamilton EMS answered the call and deployed one Mobile Intensive Care Unit (MICU-Ambulance) staffed by EMT-Paramedic Carlene Selman and EMT Bradley Poston (both based in Llano County) along with EMS Captain EMT-paramedic Trey Griffin in a Command Truck. The group deployed Tuesday, May 18th, first to a staging area in San Antonio. There, they were met by other departments from across the state and became designated Emergency Medical Task Force-7 (EMTF-7). Captain Griffin was designated Ambulance Strike Team Leader and managed five ambulance crews: Hamilton EMS, Bryan Fire Department, and three ambulances from Austin/Travis County EMS. The entire Task Force was comprised of the Ambulance Strike Team, a Medical Incident Support Team of doctors and nurses (MIST), and an AMBUS from Frisco Fire Department (ambulance bus capable of transporting 24 stretcher patients).
Once assembled in San Antonio and designated EMTF-7, the Task Force was then deployed to Victoria and positioned closer to major flooding that occurred in southeast Texas. Luckily for all, the rains abated somewhat Wednesday into Thursday and flooding was contained and managed by local agencies. No evacuations or flood rescues were conducted by the Task Force, but had there been a need, multiple qualified personnel and resources were on-hand to save lives.
Hamilton EMS Director Patrick Cobb said, “When Texas has a need and we are able to participate - we should. At some point we will have a disaster needing a lot of emergency resources, and we will need others to help us too. We learned that during the recent ice storm. By helping others when we can, not only are we building relationships where others will return the favor, these deployments allow our staff to be exposed to emergencies on a disaster scale and learn valuable lessons they bring back and teach us here at home, making our operations as efficient as possible.”
All state deployments are 100% reimbursed to the home agency.