Viral video of a Los Angeles city fire rescue truck with two boats rolling south towards Hurricane Irma on the Florida Turnpike near Disney World has become an Internet sensation.
“Chokes me up,” said the Twitter user, Franco Powers. “This is so cool, these boys are all the way from California.”
The truck, part of the city’s swiftwater rescue team from Station 88 in Encino, was racing to rescue work to help hurricane victims in Florida.
Choked me up. @LAFD all the way from California southbound on the Florida turnpike heading toward #HurricanIrma @cnnbrk @FoxNews @MSNBC pic.twitter.com/j1sDXTSGEV
— Franco Powers (@FrancoPowers) September 9, 2017
Video of the truck, and its trailer holding two speedboats, was captured at Milepost 255 on Interstate 75, near Disney World.
A city fire spokesperson responded that 80 fire rescue workers from Los Angeles were in Florida and were “honored to now help Floridians during Hurricane Irene, on behalf of the people of Los Angeles.”
Meanwhile, the Orange County Fire Authority sent seven Urban Search and Rescue specialists from Monday through Friday to assist Irma operations, said OCFA Capt. Steve Concialdi.
A K-9 search specialist joined California Task Force 8 out of San Diego and a structural specialist joined a task force from Washington State, Concialdi said. Another structural specialist and four Incident Support Team members also headed to Florida.
“A few of the USAR firefighters either just returned (from Hurricane Harvey) or they went from Texas straight there,” he said.
About 60 OCFA firefighters remained on mutual aid duty at nine fires in California, Concialdi said.
—City News Service