"We came, we saw, we returned."

All,

I returned yesterday evening from being on deployment for Hurricane Humberto for the last 28 hours. We had got the notification the day before (Wednesday, 9/12) that we were to send a boat squad from my department to join 5 other squads from across the state. After marshaling up in Austin, we headed out to College Station to Texas Task Force One's headquarters for in-processing and further tasking. After completing our in-processing the entire team of 6 boat squads (twelve separate boats) and 51 personnel headed out to our forward base of operations (called the "BOO") in Houston.<

The word was that they were expecting heavy rains across Houston, Galveston, Beaumont and Port Arthur as Tropical Storm (soon to be Hurricane) Humberto moved inland from the Gulf. Our BOO happened to be in the cavernous Reliant Center (next to Reliant Stadium- home to the NFL's Houston Texans) which is where they hold the Houston Stock show and Rodeo each year.

This place is humongous to say the least! We were kept to one section (please look at the photos) and there are two other equally big sections on each side of ours. The entire place was air conditioned (yay!) but it is always a bit hard to sleep in the equivalent of a convention center.

The vehicle in the distance is a 30ft logistics trailer. We set our cots up in that area.

That night and the next day was simply a "wait and see" time for the Water Strike Team. As Humberto crossed the coast at High Island it caused quite a bit of wind and storm damage to Beaumont, Port Arthur and the surrounding counties, but the flooding was not as extensive as they expected.

My squad checking out equipment on Wednesday night.

The next day was more of a "wait and see" sort of day- with my squad spending the time with the STAR Flight helo squad playing a new game called "PT Poker". The basic jist is playing Texas Hold-em poker but betting with rep's of various physical fitness calisthenics (push-ups, sit-ups, flutter kicks, etc...). It certainly helped pass the time and was better that sitting around napping or waiting for more Whattaburger for meals (ask me sometime why I refuse to eat Whattaburger any other time).

Around 1pm yesterday we got the orders from the state EOC that we were not needed by any of the local jurisdictions and that we were to be demobilized. The A/TCEMS boat team and helo squads were allowed to out-process in Houston so we did not have to head back to College Station before heading home to Austin. This saved us about 3-4 hours of time. After an uneventful trip back to Austin we put all of our equipment and boat back in one of our stations and headed home.

That's about it for an "uneventful deployment". Lots of Whattaburger and extra time spent hoping that you get an assignment but praying that you really don't since that means that someones life has been turned totally upside down.

XO