As Barry looms, Austin fire crew ready to help

When members of an Austin Fire Department water rescue squad think back to Hurricane Harvey, they remember the water.

"It just kept coming," said Austin fire specialist Ty Baker.

Baker was one of an eight-person team that headed to Beaumont on Friday morning as water is again expected to threaten East Texas as Tropical Storm Barry inches closer to becoming a hurricane. Forecasters expected Barry to make landfall along the Louisiana Gulf Coast as a hurricane early Saturday, The Associated Press reported. Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that state agencies were preparing aircraft, vehicles and rescue boats ahead of the storm.

Austin fire Lt. Chris Layton said his team, in support of the Texas State Operations Center, will be stationed in Beaumont in the coming days to assist with rescues, flood evacuations and damage assessment.

The team is bringing along two inflatable swift-water rescue boats — which are made of rubber and have a 40-horsepower motor — and other supplies. They plan to stay in the area for up to two weeks, Layton said. The team is also prepared to go to Louisiana if officials there request help from Texas, Layton said.

"We will go until the mission's complete," he said.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has declared a state of emergency and President Donald Trump has declared a federal state of emergency for Louisiana as flooding has ravaged parts of the state. Several inches of rain already swamped in New Orleans earlier this week, but Barry could bring more than 18 inches of additional rainfall to parts of Louisiana as the storm moves inland, forecasters told The Associated Press.

During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Layton said an Austin Fire Department team was performing rescues for 12 days. Baker described the experience as being like living in the Stone Age, because they were without power, cellphones and other modern basics, like bedding, for long periods.

"It was just a lot of water.  A lot of people needed evacuations, a lot of people needed help, and we just worked and worked and worked," Layton said.

But Layton said his team is prepared for Tropical Storm Barry, even though there's no way to tell just how much water it could bring to Texas.

"This is what we train for," he said. "Every time we go out, we learn things that we can do better or we take those experiences and apply them to the next operation that's going on."