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Virginia Task Force 2 sends more members to Louisiana

Two more Virginia Task Force 2 members flew to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to lead search and rescue teams.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Organizations from Hampton Roads are on the ground now as Hurricane Ida ripped through Louisiana, and more help is on the way.

Two more Virginia Task Force 2 members are off to Louisiana. They say they received a call Sunday and then took a plane Monday morning.

"Of course, we both said sure and they said, 'Alright, we'll get you down here as quick as we can,'" said Virginia Task Force Two Deputy Task Force Leader Jim Ingledue.  

Ingledue, along with Keene Black, are off to Baton Rouge, leading search and rescue teams on the ground.

"We're more of an organization on the command structure and so we will supervise a number of different teams in a given area," Ingledue said.

They are the second team from Virginia Task Force 2 to head to Louisiana. Thirty-five members left Virginia Beach Friday night. The team is currently being guided by FEMA's White Incident support team in Alexandria, Louisiana.

They were waiting as Ida made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane. Now, they're ready to assist in the aftermath.

Ingledue said this mission will be challenging as power is out for much of the state.

"There's limited access to vehicles, there's no power, no cell towers," he said.

They'll experience the same issues as thousands along the coastal cities.

"We going to suffer a lot of the same difficulties that the actual residents do," Ingledue said. "We just, fortunately, don't suffer the loss of a home and those things that many of them will."

Ingledue said they don't have a timeline for how long they'll be in Louisiana. He says they could be there for as long as two weeks.

   

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