'We lean on each other': Crown Point firefighter and rescue dog Jake return from hurricane-devastated Florida
CHICAGO (CBS) -- More than three weeks after Hurricane Ian made landfall, the sheer destruction is still difficult to fathom, and lost in the wreckage, victims and survivors.
That's why an assistant fire chief from Crown Point, Indiana answered the call to help. In a story you'll see Only on 2, our Suzanne Le Mignot introduces us to him and the four-legged companion helping in his quest to find people alive.
Crown Point Indiana Fire Rescue Asst. Fire Chief Ryan Cusack gives 10-year-old Labrador retriever Jake some well-deserved love. The pair recently arrived back from hurricane-ravaged Florida.
"The devastation from the storm surge was incredible," Cusack said. "It moved homes. It disassembled homes and piled them up at the end of a neighborhood. We found boats in neighborhoods. It was just incredible how damaging and how powerful that storm surge was."
Jake is trained to find trapped survivors after disasters. The pair were in Ft. Myers Beach, Iona, San Carlos Island and Sarasota County. They were deployed after Hurricane Ian hit Florida and worked as part of FEMA's response to search for survivors.
"The areas that we were assigned to search, there were no survivors located in those areas. So between my dog Jake and the rest of our team, we searched through those neighborhoods for buildings that were destroyed that may have trapped somebody. And those were our specific missions were to search those buildings, to make sure we had account for everyone," Cusack said.
He added "the survivors had already been located by local search and rescue. The big part of what our team does is we go there at the request of the local authorities to help them complete the mission. To search, to perform secondary searches, whatever it is the local resources need us to take care of."
It's the seventh time that Jake and Asst. Chief Cusack have taken part in rescue missions. Among their past missions, the Surfside, Florida condo collapse and the Mayfield, Kentucky tornado.
"We all leave a little bit of ourselves there and bring a little bit of it home with us. Everybody handles it a little bit different," Cusack said. "Everybody has a slightly different experience and you find the healthiest way that you're able to go through those things and a lot of it, we lean on each other."
And it's that strength that keeps this life saving duo heading to their next mission.
Cusack said all involved in the rescue efforts are provided with mental health resources while they're working and when they return home.
