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The central Texas floods earlier this month left rescuers scrambling through destruction. The Guadalupe River rose 26 feet and killed at least 135 people.
A Minnesota task force was called in on July 11 to join rescue efforts in Texas Hill Country as part of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact. The crew is now back home after a 16-day mission.
Brian Plantz, an Apple Valley police officer and a member of the Dakota County Special Operations Team, was part of the team, called Minnesota Task Force 1.
“Stepping into the theater where the floods happened, it’s a completely different world. The amount of devastation and destruction down there is hard to describe,” Plantz said.
Other team members include Chad Kuhlman and Jeremy Dostal of the Rochester Fire Department. Search specialists and their K-9s were on the team, as well: Melissa Burns, with K-9 Royal, and Mark Falk, with K-9 Red.
The task force was assigned to a 35-member urban search and rescue team; the Minnesota unit would be ahead of or trailing the larger group to provide K-9 support, according to Plantz.
Plantz described the work as “checking the box for negatives,” meaning the team wasn’t actively looking for human remains, but more so double-checking after earlier searches swept the area.
The K-9s searched through piles that went as deep as 10 feet. If one of the dogs “got a hit,” according to Plantz, heavy machinery was used to lift the debris. If equipment couldn’t reach the site, over 30 rescuers would handpick through the rubble. Sorting through the wreckage took over a day.
“It was more about finding the needle in the haystack,” Plantz said.
The mission couldn’t be completed without K-9s Royal and Red.
Melissa Burns and Royal have been a team for seven years and work almost every day together.
“We have a pretty deep bond … and she’ll do just about anything for me,” Burns said.
And Royal sure did. She handled the suffocating southern heat and showed her toughness amid a new environment.
Royal, however, left Texas with a few dings.
“She got bit by a bunch of red ants, and that was the original concern because red ants down there are pretty terrible when they bite you, it’s very painful,” Burns said. “The vets down at [Whitestone Animal Hospital] took amazing care of Royal. And when [the veterinarian] was doing her examinations, she wanted to go further and do more X-rays, and that’s how we found out she broke a piece of her toe.”
The dog is back home safe — with all of Minnesota Task Force 1 — and ready to keep working.
On the drive back from the rescue mission, the task force had the opportunity to decompress. Plantz said they check on each other, and the managing team offers the first responders mental health resources.
The team is also bringing back their experiences with others. Plantz said the community support was “outstanding,” and as locals recovered from the floods, they were also part of the aftermath efforts.
“There were signs up that they weren't accepting donations anymore because there were just so many resources that had come in,” Plantz said.
Although the task force was made up of only five members, they represented the state of Minnesota in Texas.
“It takes a ton of different people to put the pieces of puzzle in place for us to go down and have a successful mission like this,” Plantz said.
English (US) ·