Thirty-five more members of Missouri Task Force 1 are headed to Texas in response to deadly flooding in the Texas Hill Country.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency upgraded Missouri Task Force 1's designation from a Type III team to a Type I team, according to a news release from the Boone County Fire Protection District. The upgraded designation brings the total number of deployed personnel to 89.
MO-TF1 rostered the additional members late Sunday night, and the team flew out of St. Louis Lambert International Airport early Monday morning to San Antonio, Texas, according to the news release.
Members will rent an SUV and a bus and head to Kerr County, Texas, where they will work alongside the rest of the MO-TF1 team, which has been in Kerr County since Wednesday.
The task force has been conducting searches along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, according to past KOMU 8 reporting. The task force suspended operations on Sunday due to severe weather and was expected to resume searches Monday.
The task force's deployment as a Type III team included 54 members, including five humans remains detection canines and handlers.
The now-Type I task force is among two other federal urban search and rescue teams upgraded to a Type I team: Colorado Task Force 1 and Indiana Task Force 1 were also upgraded from Type III to Type I teams, according to the Boone County Fire Protection District.
MO-TF1 is deployed alongside other federal teams to aid in Kerr County, where more than 100 people have been confirmed dead from flooding that began early July 4, CNN reports.
Arizona Task Force 1 and Nevada Task Force 1 have been activated as Type III teams with water rescue capabilities. More than a dozen human remains detection canine resources have been deployed from across the country, including from MO-TF1, and four individual search team managers have been deployed from Ohio Task Force 1, New York Task Force 1, Virginia Task Force 1 and Washington Task Force 1, according to the Fire District.
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