MIAMI (WSVN) – South Florida search and rescue teams have begun preparations to assist those hundreds of miles away as Hurricane Isaias approaches.

In Miami, the South Florida Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 2 has been prepping since about 4 a.m. Thursday morning making sure everything is in order so they can get up to Tallahassee by Thursday afternoon.

“Type 1 is the highest level, which is 80 personnel, 70 workers and then 10 drivers, because we are driving to the northern part of the state. The experience is wide range. We have members that went to the World Trade Center that are on this task force, and members that just came back from Venezuela a few months ago from the earthquake that occurred there,” said City of Miami Fire Rescue Deputy Chief Scott Dean, who is a leader in Task Force 2. “So yeah, we have a wide range of training and experience. Several hurricanes under our belt, so we’re just going in and provide assistance, whatever is needed for that community is impacted.”

Completely self-sufficient with their own heavy equipment, sleeping arrangements, K-9’s, tools and most importantly their own expertise, the 80 person team from 26 different agencies across South Florida has a wide variety of ages and experience that is brought to the table.

“In the whole country a lot of fire departments are volunteer and they do phenomenal work phenomenal work but there’s going to be a difference when you have a paid organization that’s already there and then when you have a volunteer organization and those people are impacted themselves,” said Dean. “It’s hard to ask people to come in when they’re Their homes are devastated or their loved ones are hurt, and they try to volunteer at a fire station, it’s very difficult to request that, so when these task forces come in there, they’re just kind of like there to provide extra manpower and help those people out to get them up to par so they can come back and do their job.”

Water rescue boats are being taken as well to make sure they are able reach people in need, just in case there’s any flooding or bridge damage.

“We take anything. All the equipment we take is for any potential scenario. Whether it’s an earthquake, a tornado, a hurricane, whatever you can think of, we’re prepared to go out the door. So, we have rescue equipment, we have swift water equipment, we have planning equipment so that we’re kind of self-sufficient and that we don’t bother the local community that’s already impacted by the disaster,” said Dean.

7News spoke with a K-9 handler Thursday morning who’s bringing nine-year-old Labrador retriever “Patron” with him for live search and rescue missions, a critical component in relief efforts.

“Yeah, so you can have building collapse, we were in Venezuela, so there’s a lot of building collapse, it’s a different type of search we’re going through rubble and voids, the dogs are going under narrow areas,” said Captain Joe Berres, Florida Task Force 2. “Usually in a hurricane situation, you’ve got a lot of rising water, water surges that’s going to wipe out maybe some homes and that, so if they’re pushed all back piled, the dogs will go across and will try to search those areas, but it’s more of an open area search, I would say, instead of more of a confined to a building collapse.”

It is a precise mission for them that they train all year for, so they’re goal is to be set up in Tallahassee by Thursday afternoon and be in place for once it hits, and ready to go wherever they’re needed.

“We work with a local government that’s in charge and they’ll kind of have a better idea of where all the residents are located, and then the plan is really to just get into that area that’s devastated and if there’s anybody trapped, get them in, get them out, get them to the proper medical attention and seeking whatever assistance they need from that point forward,” said Dean.

Meanwhile in Homestead, first responders along with Task Force 1 have also geared up and begun to head out north.

Florida Task Force 1, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, and members of the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office were packing up trucks early Thursday as they headed out Tallahassee.

“Back at the home front, it’s a lot. We have to get our kids prepared, our family prepared, because we’re going to be gone for an extended amount of time. So that’s the first preparation. The next preparation is going to be having all of our equipment, our essentials for us to be able to deploy for at least 14 days, which is our original mission, is be able to deploy for 14 days,” said Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Captain Orestes Gonzalez with Task Force 1.” After that, once we get there, we start to assess the area, see what might be impacted the hardest, and prepare our guys to be able to deploy as soon as the weather permits.”

Dozens of first responders and personnel could be seen getting ready to go help those impacted by the storm.

Around 88 members of special teams will be assisting local and state agencies with relief efforts, and also help people living in the areas that will eventually be impacted by the storm.

“We’re going to have a large caravan of vehicles, trucks, cars making our way up. It’ll be a probably four or five hour ride. It’ll be one of those times, we take it to study the map, study the weather, what’s going to happen, what impact it’s going to hit; and that’s where our preparation starts, which actually started since last night when we got the call that we’re going to be heading out,” said Gonzalez.

The team has spent all week preparing and all morning getting everything together to leave.

“Depending on what the storm brings, we will find a location where we can house our members and then from there, we’ll be monitoring the storm and gathering information on what areas we need to address, we need to go visit first, make sure there’s nobody trapped, there’s nobody that has been missing for a while, so we can start getting our K-9’s or search teams looking for those individuals,” said Gonzalez.

They said they specialize in 19 areas including flooding and high water rescues, with multiple K-9 teams that will be able to canvas impacted areas and carry out search and rescue efforts, and they can also provide medical care.

“So we’ll do wide area searches where we, the guys lovingly call it trick or treating, where we go house by house and just hail and make sure that everybody’s okay, they’ll do a structural assessment, they’ll try to determine if it seems like anybody was home, cars in the driveway, that sort of thing and if it warrants, then they’ll make entry and they’ll search the building for anybody that’s trapped or injured,” said M-DFR Battalion Chief Brandon Webb.

They anticipate that they will be up there for at least a week helping people affected by the storm.

Both Task forces will be staged in Tallahassee and then within the next 24 hours, they will see where it is that they have to be deployed to in the panhandle.

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