The team deployed with 81 members to assist in the recovery efforts following the Champlain Towers South condominium collapse. The team worked for 240 hours on 10 12-hour operational periods and recovered 14 victims and assisted other teams with the recovery of other victims found. Once the task force arrived in Florida and started working, there was an Ohio team on the pile at all times until it was demobilized on Monday, a task force member said during the media briefing.
Mike Cayse of the Cincinnati Fire Department and a task force leader, said there were parallels to the 9/11 terror attacks nearly 20 years ago, and that such a mission is not an easy one.
“We usually train for a rescue not a recovery. But we approach it with the same vigor, the same intensity. Our guys were very motivated to help the citizens down there, the community down there, bring closure to them,” he said.
“Our job was to recover as much as we can for the families that were suffering down there. … We had some good intelligence on where some people might be. We have the best team in the country here, and we were able to work with other teams and bring closure to a lot of families’ lives down there,” Cayse said.
At least 97 people have died in the condo collapse and 14 others are still missing as of Thursday, the Associated Press reported.
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