The Alaska National Guard will activate 50 Guardsmen on state active duty to deploy to Florida to assist the Florida National Guard with response and recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Milton.

The task force, which includes members of the Alaska Army and Air National Guard, will join Guardsmen from other states across the country to provide a range of response and recovery efforts at the direction of the Florida National Guard.

“Our hearts and prayers are with those Floridians affected by Hurricane Milton,” said Governor Mike Dunleavy.  “I am proud of our Guardsmen and state emergency operations teams for answering the call to help their fellow Americans through this challenging time.”

The first wave of Guardsmen plans to depart via commercial air this afternoon for Jacksonville, Florida.  Other waves will follow throughout the weekend. 

Once in Jacksonville, they will travel to the Camp Blanding Joint Training Center for a brief orientation before receiving their specific assignment. The Guardsmen are expected to conduct their response and recovery mission for 10 days before returning to Alaska. 

  The Guard task force is not the first group of Alaskans to deploy to the Southeastern U.S. to assist with hurricane response. The Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management has already deployed eight emergency operations personnel from the Alaska State Emergency Operations Center to the region: one to Florida, one to Virginia, and six to North Carolina. They are supporting emergency operations at the state and county level.

Both the Guardsmen and the state emergency operations teams will operate under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact.  According to emacweb.org, EMAC “offers assistance during governor-declared states of emergency or disaster through a responsive, straightforward system that allows states to send personnel, equipment and commodities to assist with response and recovery efforts in other states.”