Portrait of the Alaska Type 1 Interagency Incident Management Team in front of their temporary headquarters in Purvis Mississippi.

High winds from the hurricane blew down 40-60% of the trees in southern Mississippi.

One of my jobs as a Sitution Unit Leader for the Team was leading briefings for workers at one of the FEMA trailer staging areas in Baton Rouge, LA.

All that was left of a house on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. House debris significantly contributed to fire risk for remaining buildings.

The Alaska Type 1 Interagency Incident Management Team responded to Hurricane Katrina Relief on September 3, 2005. The 33 people on the team, representing Alaska State and Federal agencies, included Mary Kwart, US Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska Region Fuels Specialist. The Alaska Team specializes in managing complex wildfires, hurricane disaster relief, and also responded to the New York World Trade Center Disaster in 2001.

During this assignment, the Team assisted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) coordinating receiving and distribution of travel trailers and mobile homes for Hurricane Katrina evacuees.  Based in Selma, Alabama, branch organizations of team members set up at five outlying sites from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Cumberland, Maryland. During this two week assignment over 9,700 trailers were received from contractors and redistributed to evacuees.

The team received an additional task order on September 21 from FEMA to assist the State of Mississippi in augmenting their wildland firefighting capability. Hurricane winds had toppled 40-60% of all trees in southern Mississippi, creating extreme fire danger. Fire season in the south was active through November. Based in Purvis, Mississippi, the team wrote a fire hazard mitigation plan and implemented it by gathering and organizing task forces of firefighters, fire engines and bulldozers from all regions of the US. These task forces removed fallen trees from roads and were ready to suppress fires within ten counties adjacent to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. The team returned to Alaska on October 3.