Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Supervisor Don Knabe, and other members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors recently gathered to honor the 85 members of the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Urban Search and Rescue Team, California Task Force 2, including six canine heroes and their handlers and 31 members of the CA-TF2 Deployment Support Team. The honors came after the team members deployed to Haiti following last month’s earthquake.

While in Haiti, the team saved the lives of nine people and provided medical care and support to numerous other people. The first team deployed on January 13, on a 14-day mission to assist the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the rescue and recovery of earthquake victims in Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince. A second team was deployed for eight days beginning January 29, 2010, to provide rescue ready support and humanitarian aid as the country continued its recovery efforts, and returned to Los Angeles on February 7, 2010.