PHOTOS/VIDEO: Florida Forest Service Provides 3 Million Bottles of Water, 1 Million Meals to Texans

Tallahassee, Fla. — As the Florida Forest Service’s Green Incident Management Team begins their fourth day of operations at the Resource Staging Area (RSA) at Randolph Air Force Base Auxiliary Airport near San Antonio, they continue to send trucks carrying water and meals to residents in need in over 100 Texas counties.

Through collaborative efforts with Texas A&M Forest Service, the Texas Department of Emergency Management, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 202 trucks of water containing 3,434 pallets totaling 137,360 cases and 3,296,640 bottles of water have been sent out from the RSA. Seventy-four trucks of Meals Ready to Eat (MRE’s) containing 2,484 pallets totaling 124,200 cases and 1,490,400 meals have also been sent out. To date, 66 counties throughout Texas have received water and 35 counties have received MRE’s. This 24-hour operation of the RSA supplies FEMA trucks with loads of water and MRE’s to deliver to counties throughout Texas.

PHOTOS/VIDEO: Photos and video of Green IMT personnel in action may be found here.

“Truckloads of water and meals continue to arrive at the RSA daily,” said Operations Section Chief Jason Longfellow. “Our priority is to coordinate and fill the orders that we receive from the Texas Department of Emergency Management and get these much-needed supplies out to the residents of Texas as soon as possible.”

“Through the seamless, collaborative efforts of our partners, we are meeting the critical needs of residents throughout the State of Texas,” said Deputy Incident Commander Bryce Thomas. “So far, more than 100 counties have received the necessary supplies of food and water that they so desperately need.”

“We continue to stand with the citizens of Texas who are have suffered through life-threatening sub-zero temperatures, power outages, severely iced roads, and other emergencies. Our Green Incident Management Team, composed of our hardworking Florida Forest Service personnel, are working to get millions of meals and bottles of water get to communities in need while keeping emergency responders stay safe from COVID-19,” said Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. “We thank our Florida Forest Service team for continuing to help our neighbors in Texas recover from this devastating natural disaster.”

Media seeking local information please contact Ludie Bond at Ludie.Bond@FDACS.gov or (352) 258-6084.

The Florida Forest Service, a division of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, manages more than 1 million acres of state forests and provides forest management assistance on more than 17 million acres of private and community forests. The Florida Forest Service is also responsible for protecting homes, forestland and natural resources from the devastating effects wildfire on more than 26 million acres. Learn more at FDACS.gov/FLForestService and follow @FLForestService for updates.

###