As the assistant fire chief for the Boulder City Fire department, Josh Barrone has seen his fair share of tragedies and destruction during his career.
But what he saw in the aftermath of hurricanes Helene and Milton was something he’ll not soon forget.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” the longtime firefighter said. “It was very eerie. We stayed in a local high school. From our setting it looked like a very quaint, peaceful town, very green and lush with trees and hills. You go 10 minutes into the area, passing beautiful farms and once you went over the hill, you’d see the area of devastation near the river.
“It was eye-opening and also incredible to see the community come together and providing us the same assistance we were providing them. Because of the sheer magnitude of the area, we didn’t have all the resources we needed so the community provided us with UTVs (utility terrain vehicles) to help us get places to where we needed to be. It was a well-oiled machine between us and them to help solve a problem.”
Barrone was one of five members of BCFD that joined the Nevada Task Force (NV-TFI) team back east after getting the call from FEMA on Sept. 27. Others included Capt. Aaron Bleck, firefighter Nicholas Giles, reserve Battalion Chief Michael Porter and firefighter Robert Acevedo.
The team was originally dispatched to Orlando following Hurricane Helene, which left a swath of destruction across numerous states. The hurricane not only brought with it high winds and rain but the aftermath left many creeks and rivers overflowing, causing a tremendous amount of flooding. After getting to Florida, the team was quickly rerouted to Tennessee, just east of Knoxville.
“We were doing more search and rescue at that point and looking for any potential victims,” he said.
Following Helene, Barrone and others were tasked with going to residences to check on the welfare of people who had not been heard from. He said he had interactions with dozens of people, many of whom lost everything in the floods. The nearby river is normally 5 feet deep but at its peak, it was estimated to be 25 feet deep.
“The sheer amount of water there was amazing,” he said. “There’s no words to describe the magnitude of the water and the power it has.”
Barron said the biggest difference between the devastation caused by flooding and fire is simple.
“The difference is, water stays,” he said. “Fire eliminates and destroys, it disintegrates. Things are turned into ash. Nothing there got destroyed in the way that it got disintegrated. It was all there but it was moved to a different location and stacked into piles of debris.”
Barrone said it was just about time that they were set to go home when the South and East Coast got hit with a one-two punch by the name of Hurricane Milton. The team was then reassigned to Florida, outside of Tampa Bay. He said they got a lot of wind and rain but he said they were safe and, “Didn’t go to bed scared. You knew it was going to hit but we weren’t sure to what extent and what we’d wake up to.”
Their task was to go around and assess structural damage and assist residents in any way they could.
“It was a learning experience,” he said. “Personally, it was incredible to be part of the team, which is full of amazing people who are dedicated to the role of the fire service. It was an incredible experience to take what I do here, daily, and go and help people who were truly in need of our assistance.”