Indiana National Guard ready to go if Hurricane Milton relief is needed

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana National Guard said it is ready to go should Florida need its help after Hurricane Milton makes landfall.

Hurricane Helene swept through the Sunshine State and its neighbors almost two weeks ahead of Milton’s expected landfall in Florida. Since then, Indiana National Guard members have been busy sorting through that destruction and helping restore daily life.

“They are down there to help with recovery efforts and to look for victims of the hurricane and retrieve those victims and give closure to families who may have lost their loved ones,” Master Sgt. Jeff Lowry with the Indiana National Guard said.

Lowry said those teams are prepared to help as long as they are needed.

“We’re down there as long as the incident commander deems us necessary to be there,” he said. “Whether that’s for two days, four days, weeks, a fortnight, whatever.”

Here at home, Lowry said the state’s soldiers and airmen are constantly preparing for future situations.

“We train with our civilian agencies all the time,” he said. “We are prepared for situations like this. We’re checking our gear, making sure it’s ready, tip-top, fueled up, making sure our vehicles are fueled up. Whatever equipment our units need, we make sure that’s ready to go and ready to rock and roll.”

As Hurricane Milton makes its way across the Gulf of Mexico, Lowry said National Guard units across the country will be on standby.

“There’s a whole process that’s routed up through the chains of command, through national guard bureau, through federal agencies,” he described. “And then once we get that call, they task it out to other states to see who can go. If we get that call, we’ll be ready to respond.”

Right now, there is no definitive timeline for when those 12 airmen in North Carolina will return back home.

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