Approximately 80 members of U.S. Army North have been dispatched from San Antonio to four states in the path of Hurricane Isaac.
Army North supports FEMA and local first responders during disasters, providing services ranging from flood rescue to fire control.
Sixty soldiers were deployed to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands when then-Tropical Storm Isaac moved through. They have now been redeployed to the Gulf Coast states.
Governmental tech website Nextgov writes the response teams are traveling with special vehicles designed to facilitate communication in the storm path:
[Col. Wayne Shanks] said the emergency response vehicles, Chevy Suburbans topped with retractable satellite dishes, provide the teams with a range of communications capabilities. The satellite dishes connect to Defense networks with a throughput of 2 megabits per second.
You can follow Hurricane Isaac's path on NPR’s live blog.
