Ten Fairfax County firefighters who are part of Virginia Task Force 1 returned late Thursday from helping coordinate a rescue effort after the devastating earthquake in Colombia.
Family members greeted the team as they arrived in Chantilly Thursday night. A young girl held a sign that read “Welcome Home Daddy.”
For Andy Kassavetis, this was his first mission with Task Force 1, and seeing the devastation in Colombia put some things into perspective for him.
He said he saw firsthand “how impactful an event can be on a community. It makes you think about, you know, really when you come home sharing the love with the people around you and letting them know you’re there with them, because things can change really quickly.”
Captain Michael Eddy was Virginia Task Force 1 team leader for this excursion, a leader who had just weeks before been in Venezuela on a similar mission.
”Getting down there was a huge honor for us to help support the Columbian government, to help support the Columbians recover from this,” Eddy said. “Our small team did an astronomical amount of work down there.”
The team was sent to some of the hardest hit areas, he said, to evaluate buildings, fire stations and personal homes, making sure they were safe enough for occupants to return to.
Battalion Chief Robert Schoenberger thanked the team for their hard work. “Thank you for your service, thank you for your relentless dedication to what we do outside of here,” he said. “Everybody in the world sees what you all do, it’s on TV. But they don’t see what you do, day in and day out.”
The 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck Colombia Aug. 10 left a massive amount of devastation behind. More than 300 people died, and thousands more were injured, officials said.
