SURFSIDE, Fla. — On Monday, first responders from the First Coast wrapped up their first shift at the building collapse site in Surfside, Florida.
Eighty men and women from the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department left Sunday for Surfside. According to JFRD Chief Keith Powers, the 80 were split into four groups.
Two of the groups worked on the pile of rubble searching for victims, and two are on standby and monitor conditions in case they need to make a rescue.
"They're working in a very dangerous atmosphere with the toxins that are in and coming out of that pile," Powers said. "There’s also the danger of stuff falling on them from that building, the part of the building that’s still standing, plus all the rebar and all the metal that’s still sticking up. It’s just a very dangerous area they’re working in."
Powers said the fire service as an industry learned how to better protect first responders from the dangers of carcinogens after the September 11 attacks.
"One of the things that they’re doing in South Florida right now to protect the men and women from all of the different task forces that are working out there on the pile is to make sure they have the proper respiratory protection, the proper PPE to make sure that they’re safe," Powers said.
"They’re monitoring the air and if anything comes up, they get them off the pile. When those fires started burning the other morning, they got them off the pile and get them out of the way until they can get them back to where it’s a more tenable condition," he added.
Four search and rescue dogs also made the trip with the JFRD crew. Powers said they're rotating their crews throughout their 12-hour shifts. The crews are working from midnight to noon each day.
"We’re also rotating our crews to keep them fresh and, you know, the fresher they are the safer they are because, you know, when you get tired, you kind of miss things, and so we don’t want to do that, so we’re rotating them on a regular basis," Powers said.
He said when crews finish their shifts, they're able to talk to a crisis management team member.
"When you're dealing with a tragedy, any loss of life is terrible, but when you start talking about the amount of loss of life that they're dealing with down there, and the things that they're seeing, it's just going to affect them for the rest of their lives," Powers said.
According to Powers, when he put the call out to the department for volunteers to go to Surfside, he was overwhelmed by the response.
“I brag on our department all the time and I’ll continue to brag on them. They all raised their hands and said, 'I want to go,' and they were selected to go, but there’s also a group behind the scenes that is working here in Jacksonville that said, 'Hey, I’ll volunteer to fill their shift so they can go,'" Powers said.
"We're just a blessed department to have the department of the size that we do and have the caliber of men and women of our department that always raise their hands that are saying, 'I’ll help,' whether it’s going to south Florida to help, or whether it’s staying here to backfill the spots of those who went to south Florida to help," he added.
Powers said he talked to some of the 80 Monday.
"I think the common word is overwhelming," Powers said. "Everyone I've talked to is saying the same thing: it's just overwhelming. You take a 12, 13 story building, whatever it was, and now it’s about a pile that’s two stories tall and when it pancakes down, that’s just overwhelming, and to think about the number of victims that are in that pile still it weighs on you."
The crew is planning to stay for seven days, but Powers said that could get extended. He said they'll continue to help Surfside with equipment and crews as they request both.
“We’re filling that as they need it as we can still maintain coverage here, but we’re just blessed that we have a mayor and a city council that, they want to help that community too, and they’ve told me, they’ve given me instructions, 'Do whatever it takes to help them,'" Powers explained. "So we’re going to continue to give them resources as they request them."
Powers said they also have enough staff to relieve the 80 there now with a different crew if needed.
You can help those impacted by the collapse by calling 518-323-0374 to donate.