Henrico firefighters, Virginia Red Cross volunteers join disaster relief efforts in Florida ahead of Helene
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Ten Henrico County firefighters arrived in Orlando, Florida on Wednesday to help with relief efforts during and after Hurricane Helene. The firefighters are some of 80 members with FEMA’s Virginia Task Force 2 Urban Search and Relief Team based out of Hampton Roads.
Mark Cumashot has served as a FEMA rescue team manager since Henrico Fire joined the Task Force 12 years ago. He is also Henrico Fire’s assistant chief of special operations and spoke to CBS 6 on a brief stop in Georgia.
“We always still have work at home. We still have our friends and family at home, but one of the things that we try and do is we also evenly distribute our impact on our home department, so we're not impacting one shift more than the other,” Cumashot described.
The team will join FEMA’s disaster relief headquarters at an Orlando convention center as they prepare supplies and logistics. They plan to respond to stranded families or people trapped in floodwaters, among other rescue efforts. They are prepared to stay in Florida for about two weeks.
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