North Texas First Responders Answer Call To Help Along Gulf Coast Following Hurricane Laura

FLOWER MOUND, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) – First responders in North Texas are answering the call for help along the coast, deploying teams to take part in the Hurricane Laura response.

“There’s actually crews here from all over the state of Texas,” said Brandon Barth, the emergency management officer for the Flower Mound Fire Department. “We can relatively quickly respond and assist each other. I think it’s pretty remarkable that that mechanism exists and Texans can help Texans so easily and readily.”

Barth has been working non-stop the past three days, evacuating people in the Beaumont/Port Arthur area. His department sent a crew with their AMBUS and two additional boat teams.

“It feels good to be able to be down here and assist and help these people get out of harm’s way before it’s too late,” he said.

Flower Mound isn’t the only fire department helping Texas’ coastal communities right now. Dallas, Plano, Grapevine, Frisco, and McKinney all sent crews.

(3) Update:
Our members arrived in Houston safe and sound. They were able to grab a couple of hours sleep and are now heading to Beaumont to assist in the affected areas. pic.twitter.com/H1qYENLUbH

— Grapevine Fire Dept (@GrapevineFireTX) August 27, 2020

A line of emergency vehicles! Our paramedics were evacuated from Beaumont with others on #EMTF deployment. At this moment, they are headed back in to help with storm damage. #hurricanelaura #mckinneystrong pic.twitter.com/jlsorSGXYz

— mckinneyfire (@mckinneytxfire) August 27, 2020

Fort Worth firefighters answered the call too.

“If you’re in the fire service or any of the emergency services, you want to help,” said Assistant Chief Landon Stallings with the Fort Worth Fire Department. “So this is, you know, like one of our Super Bowls to get to come to. It’s quite an honor to get to go and do work and represent your department.”

Stallings is thankful Hurricane Laura seems to have mostly spared Texas.

“We were able to get out this morning about 5 a.m. and do reconnaissance and see we really didn’t have any needs here,” said Stallings, who’s working in the Beaumont area.

Since the worst of the damage appears to be in Louisiana, some North Texas crews could now get sent there to help.

Firefighters expect these deployments to last up to 14 days, so it’s unclear when exactly they’ll return home.