42 doctors, nurses, paramedics, pharmacists, and medical responders form South Florida are now in the New York - New Jersey area to provide medical support to areas affected by Hurricane Sandy.
They are members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency - FEMA - Florida 5 Disaster Medical Assistance Team, FL-5 DMAT.
The group came to be in 1994 after a need for this type of aid was identified following Hurricane Andrew.
Mike Jachles is a spokesperson for the Broward Sheriff's Office and says the group contains medical professionals from all five South Florida counties, ranging from Monroe to Martin. Jachles said, "They might be a hospital, they might be in field hospitals, they might be doing anything you can imagine if it's medically related to provide support for the hospitals that are up there - the infrastructure - they have equipment that's up there already on-site - there's a federal warehouse of equipment - so the equipment meets the team there.
The need for relief medical personnel has been compounded by the fact that this storm hit so late in the season and a few days after the region was the target of a snowstorm.
