FEMA members staged in Atlanta await word out of New Orleans

SAUGUS – Emergency Management Director Paul Penachio and Deputy Director Fritz White are in a hurry up and wait situation in Atlanta as the state’s Urban Search and Rescue Task Force waits to hear if it will head to Louisiana.Penachio and White are part of the state’s 80-member team that left Beverly in a 21-vehicle convoy Sunday morning. The team is currently staged in Atlanta waiting to hear if they will be needed in the post Hurricane Gustav cleanup.Fire Chief James Blanchard said Penachio was on vacation in Maine when he got the call.”He’s on duty for calls all the time,” Blanchard said. “When they get a call they have to drop everything and go.”The team’s job, if it’s called up, is to search collapsed buildings for survivors. It is the same group that headed to New York City during the 9-11 terrorist attacks.With 110-mile per hour winds Gustav delivered a mere glancing blow to New Orleans but did ravage parts of Cocodrie about 72 miles southwest of the Big Easy. According to published reports there was also a levee in Plaquemines Parish that was in danger of collapse putting up to 300 homes at risk.Blanchard said he didn’t believe it was likely that Penanchio’s group would be called into action but he thought it was good they were there and ready to go. He said it was good to see officials learned from Katrina, the hurricane that devastated parts of Louisiana and Alabama three years ago leaving 1,600 people dead and thousands homeless.”It looks like they made all the right moves this time,” he said. “This time they opened shelters, moved in buses to evacuate people and brought in water.”Revere Fire Chief Gene Dougherty is also a member of the team but decided to sit out this hurricane. He is working instead as the Public Information Officer for the New England end of things.Firefighter Joe Guarnera and auxiliary police officer Bob Mecurio were deployed. Mecurio, Dougherty said, is a rigging specialist.”Hurricanes are tough,” he said. “It’s a lot of waiting.”While it might look as if the men won’t be needed for Gustav, Dougherty said they will keep the team at least until the latter part of the week in the event Hurricane Hannah should hit the south hard.”There is no sense bringing them back then re-deploying them,” he said. “They will know more by Thursday how Hannah will play out.”