By Kirk Brown
The Anderson Independent-Mail
ANDERSON, S.C. — Three firefighters from Anderson County left Tuesday for Albany, N.Y., to provide assistance in the region that is dealing with floods caused by Tropical Storm Lee’s torrential rains.
The firefighters are part of the Upstate Incident Management Team, which is hosted by the Anderson Fire Department. The team is one of four in South Carolina that responds to major incidents in the state and elsewhere when help is needed to deal with disasters, said Anderson Assistant Fire Chief Randy Bratcher.
Bratcher said the personnel sent to Albany include Anderson city firefighters Daniel Cawthon and Dusty Morgan and Miriam Bratcher of Anderson County’s Williford station. Miriam Bratcher is Randy Bratcher’s wife.
The firefighters from Anderson County will be working 12-hour shifts at the Emergency Operations Center in Albany for the next seven to 14 days, Randy Bratcher said. Their task will be to help plan the ongoing response to the flooding.
As of Tuesday morning, about 1,000 people were still in shelters in Binghamton, N.Y., as a result of flooding. Some areas also are still without power.
Tropical Storm Lee dropped more than 10 inches of rain over parts of New York as it moved through the region last week.
Members of the Upstate Management Team were last sent out of state a couple of years ago to help battle fires in California, Bratcher said. Prior to that, he said, members of the team were deployed to Washington, D.C. to help with logistics involved with President Obama’s inauguration in January 2009.
Copyright 2011 Independent Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved