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SALT LAKE CITY -- As the death count in the Midwest rises to high 30s, organizations in Utah are preparing to move into those areas affected by the violent tornados.
Red Cross volunteers are on standby, as are members of Utah Task Force One. Three teams from Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois have been sent to the areas devastated by Friday's storms. The task force is an urban search and response team that responds when disasters like this hits, wherever they are in the country. Members of the Utah Task Force responded after Hurricane Katrina and 9/11, but they also help with situations locally. They were sent to Logan in 2009, when a mudslide buried a home in Logan, killing three people.
The Task Force is made up mostly firefighters who are used to dealing with difficult situations. Still, they say, their job doesn't get any easier.
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Storms demolish small towns in Ind., Ky.; 38 dead
Across the South and Midwest, survivors emerged Saturday to find blue sky and splinters where homes once stood, cars flung into buildings and communications crippled after dozens of tornadoes chainsawed through a region of millions, leveling small towns along the way."I remember Katrina and the devastation there. It can get to you," said Ct. Ryan Mellor. "We feel just like everybody else in the country -- just horrified with the loss of life in the central part of the United States."
Mellor says that Utah Task Force One members are always ready to be activated. When the team is activated, they're ready to go within four hours and the team is self- sufficient for several days.
Capt. Mellor doesn't expect his team to be activated this time. He says they're definitely thinking about their fellow Task Force One members who are at the tornado-hit communities, because those areas are home for many of those members.
