Crown Point Fire Rescue's dynamic duo Assistant Fire Chief Ryan Cusack and K-9 Jake were activated Thursday afternoon for their seventh deployment with National US&R Response System, Indiana USAR Task Force #1. The pair drove to Indianapolis to join other team members and travel
to Florida to meet up with the rest of the team. Once in the area, the team will be assigned to search and rescue missions to help those affected by Hurricane Ian.
IN-TF1 originally deployed with 48 members on Tuesday morning to get to a staging area before the storm hit. FEMA requested additional resources Thursday, resulting in 34 additional rescuers being activated from Indiana, including Ryan and Jake.
Jake is a live-find search and rescue dog, trained to find survivors after disasters who may be trapped in a collapsed building or swept away by a storm. He is a 10-year-old Labrador retriever and works for his favorite tennis ball or tug-of-war toy.
Ryan and Jake have been with Indiana Task Force 1 since 2013, but their home team is Indiana District 1 Technical Rescue, hosted by Crown Point Fire Rescue.
Previous Deployments
2016: Hurricane Matthew
2018: Hurricane Florence
2019: Hurricane Dorian
2020: Hurricane Delta
2021: Surfside, Florida, Collapse
2021: Mayfield, Kentucky, Tornado
2022: Hurricane Ian
Fire Chief Mark Baumgardner stated, “As a department, we are always very proud of Assistant Chief Cusack and K-9 Jake when they are deployed with INTF-1. When they go into these types of disaster areas, they are not only representing the State of Indiana, but the City of Crown Point. With the
generous support the community has continued to show to our K-9 program, the City of Crown Point and its citizens are directly supporting the search-and-rescue efforts of Hurricane Ian and that is something everyone from Crown Point should be proud of.”
For further updates and information on the deployment, please follow Indiana USAR Task Force # 1 on Facebook.
