First week out on the field

So it's our first full week out on the field. We get to the JFO at 6:45am and head out into the field until 3:45 and hopefully make it back to the JFO by 5pm. 

What we do is we drive from Mandan, North Dakota to the reservation out in South Dakota the drive is usually 1 hr and we get to see a lot of the country side. While out on the reservation our team is broken into two teams, one with three and mine with four (which includes our TL). Each team had a Task Force Leader go out with them, but pretty much we have been conducting the damage assessment on our own. We always have a member from the Standing Rock Reservation who leads us around to all the sites which are very far apart (usually). Our assessment was only suppose to take a day or two, but since the flooding damaged a lot of facilities we have had to extend it to two or three more days. The drives are pretty fun because we get to do a lot of off roading, but even then we have to be careful because we have absolutely no cell phone reception. Yesterday, the other team's transmission blew out and then the truck that they were trying to complete their assessment in got stuck in the mud. They eventually made it back though and only an hour late. 

So our days have been quite busy and tiring, but we are still finding time to not only cook our individual meals, but also do PT which helps a lot when it comes to sitting in the trucks for large periods of time. 

We had a pretty bad storm last weekend that triggered a tornado warning and watch and led to nickel sized hail!

It's is Lynn our FEMA Task Force Leader

It's is me in my FEMA gear driving out to SRST.