Search, rescue team with KY firefighters honored on trip home from condo collapse

A search and rescue task force heading home after working to find victims in the ruins of Florida’s collapsed condo received a special honor from the Lexington Fire Department on Thursday.

Ohio Task Force 1 is a team of 80 firefighters from over 70 departments around Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The team was deployed to help at the Surfside Champlain Towers South collapse on June 30, just a few days after the June 24 disaster. Lexington fire Capt. Ryan Hogsten was among them.

On Thursday, the task force headed back to Dayton, Ohio, passing through Fayette County on its way, and the Lexington Fire Department planned something special.

On the Athens Boonesboro Road overpass on I-75 at exit 104, the fire department displayed a banner and an American flag between the ladders of two fire engines to honor the team’s “service and sacrifice,” said Battalion Chief Jordan Saas, the department’s spokesman.

The 16-vehicle convoy, transporting task force members and equipment, passed under just before 11:20 a.m. as it traveled north on the interstate.

Hogsten was riding in Thursday’s convoy.

Hogsten was the task force’s daytime rescue team manager, running operations for the 12-hour day shifts in Florida, according to Saas.

“We are capable of working autonomously for 72 hours without any assistance,” Hogsten said of the task force.

Hogsten said Ohio Task Force 1 was one of five urban search and rescue (US&R) teams deployed to the collapse.

“Our team was sent to augment the Florida State US&R teams,” he said.

Hogsten said that six firefighters in the team were from Kentucky, coming from departments in Lexington, Covington, Ashland and Campbell County.

The Miami Herald reported Thursday that the death toll now stands at 97, with 90 bodies identified and 90 families notified, according to Alvaro Zabaleta, a spokesperson for Miami-Dade Police.

This story was originally published July 15, 2021 at 2:51 PM.