With Oklahoma facing severe flooding, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday that the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) is sending a team of emergency management personnel to the Sooner State to help.
“The team will be deployed to Muskogee County Oklahoma where it will assist local operations, as well as assisting the Cherokee Nation, which encompasses 14 counties in Oklahoma. During Hurricane Irma, Oklahoma sent an 11-person team to Monroe County to assist with local disaster response,” the governor’s office noted on Thursday.
“Florida has some of the best emergency managers in the nation who are always ready, willing and able to help others,” said DeSantis. “We are grateful that Oklahoma helped Florida during Hurricane Irma, and I am proud that today we are able to return that favor by providing assistance to Oklahoma during their time of need. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of the families impacted by this flooding, and we will continue to do all we can to support them.”
“Florida is always willing to lend a hand to help other states experiencing disasters,” said FDEM Director Jared Moskowitz who also noted that he and DeSantis had visited Israel to build ties with that nation this week. “Since I took over at FDEM, we’ve been working every day to bring the best and most innovative emergency management practices to the division, and that was exemplified when earlier this week we signed an MOU with Israel to exchange knowledge and information regarding emergency management. I’m proud that we are able to utilize Florida’s knowledge and expertise to help Oklahoma get back on its feet.”
“Oklahoma requested the Incident Management Team (IMT) through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact – a congressionally ratified mutual aid agreement that facilitates moving resources across state lines during an emergency or disaster and covers the cost of such deployment. The deployed IMT is comprised of nine emergency management personnel who specialize in managing national incidents such as the floods currently occurring in Oklahoma,” the governor’s office noted.
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