Beaumont, TX Staging Area

Hurry up and wait! The staging area is filled with entire fleets of police vehicles, fire trucks, Forestry Service vehicles, you name it. We are being tasked to the TX Department of Forestry. This confused me until I found out that the TX Department of Forestry and the Federal Division of Forestry have a long history of supporting incident management during hurricane responses. Their main mission will be to support the various local governments by coordinating ice, water and food distribution, as well as search and rescue. The radio systems in the METL have been a huge help, we have had contact with amateur radio operators in the area since about Little Rock Arkansas. The interoperability part of the MITOC is helpful in coordinating between different agencies.