About the Project
As Hurricane Irma approached Florida, I paired up with reporter Alan Blinder and the crew of California Task Force 1, a FEMA search and rescue team, to chronicle their work. The crew, which had come directly to Florida after assisting in Texas during Hurricane Harvey, spent several restless nights in the Orlando Convention Center, waiting on orders about where they would be deployed and what their mission would be. After Irma hit, they got their assignment and we traveled with them to the Florida Keys where they commandeered a Boy Scouts camp, rigged it in hours to become a small village, and began operations in the devastated region.
