CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — Three members of the Hampton Roads Incident Management Team are deploying to North Carolina to support Hurricane Helene recovery efforts.
The HRIMT is one of four all-hazard incident management teams in the state.
“We try to come in and help them set up something that will manage. You don’t have to have the fire chief; [he] doesn’t have to be standing by phones and radios the whole time. You have other people that you know can assist,” said Harry Worley with HRIMT.
During the deployment, HRIMT will work in conjunction with members of the Central Virginia Incident Management Team (CVAIMT) based in Chesterfield County as a blended team.
The team will help smaller communities manage its emergency operation centers.
“Gotta remember that a lot of those small counties, villages, and cities only have maybe one or two people in their emergency operations center. So, we go in, and we will try to help them out and assist in planning,” said Worley.
Once the team arrives in Newton, North Carolina, they will be divided into two groups. Each group will support various Emergency Operations Centers located in the affected counties in the surrounding area.
“We sent in some operation section chiefs that will go and help them set up how to meet those strategic needs that they have with what they have in place,” said Worley. “And then we sent a couple logistics specialists down there to try and figure out how to classify what they want and where they can get it.”
Due to the initial search and rescue operations starting to slow down, HRIMT says the plan is to come in and give people a break.
“It’s important for us to be able to come in and give them a hand, give them a break, let them take a deep breath, and continue on, because there certainly aren’t going to be back to normal anytime soon,” said Worley.
HRIMT departed the Chesapeake Public Safety Operations Center at 7 a.m. Saturday.
This is the second deployment from the Hampton Roads Incident Management Team for Hurricane Helene recovery efforts; they traveled to southwest Virginia for nearly a week. This mission is expected to last up to two weeks with potential for continued support.
