Hurricane Ida rescue team led by FDNY battalion chief from West Islip

An FDNY battalion chief from West Islip is leading a Louisiana-bound caravan to rescue trapped victims of Hurricane Ida, he said Monday from the road.

That chief, Joseph Downey, estimates that more than one-third of the 83 cops, firefighters and other rescuers heading down south on his team are from Long Island. Downey, who is 59 and originally from Deer Park, said he anticipates those on his team would use boats in the caravan to rescue people forced to attics and roofs by rising floodwaters.

Ida battered the Louisiana coast over the weekend and wrecked the electrical grid in New Orleans, leaving the city and beyond without power in late-summer heat.

The team is known as Urban Search and Rescue — New York Task Force 1, according to a news release sent Sunday by the office of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. The team is comprised of cops and firefighters.

Downey, who deployed to Biloxi, Mississippi, following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, expects this mission to last 10 to 14 days. The team deploys from a warehouse in Brooklyn in the Bushwick area and left Sunday night about 7 p.m. The plan is to "go in with boats to help out," Downey said.

The rescues, he said, are likely to be similar to what the team faced in 2005.

"Some of the people were found in their attics or on their roofs," he said.

The team, which is en route to Baton Rouge, specializes in urban search and rescue and is being assisted by six canines.

The deployment is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Urban Search and Rescue program. It's been activated several times over the past 30 years or so, including for Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles, plus the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 attacks, and other disasters, a city news release said.

Downey's dad, Raymond, also oversaw rescue efforts in the FDNY — and was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Michael Spiotta, a kennel manager in Port Washington for the North Shore Animal League America, is driving down Tuesday morning to the Gulf area to fetch about 50 dogs already in the animal shelter system. Those dogs will be brought back here in order to make room for animals being displaced due to the storm and whose owners might have lost their homes.

Spiotta, of Island Park, said his caravan will also drop off donations that poured in following news of the hurricane — supplies for people and animals alike.

"We've done this before, for sure this is absolutely the biggest that I've ever seen here, and we've been doing this since Katrina," he said.

Among the donors Monday were Cindy and Paul Albanese of Hauppauge, who brought dog food, water, towels, plates, water bowls and toys.

"We have animals, and we had extra, and we wanted to help," Cindy Albanese said, explaining that after reading about Ida in the news, the couple thought: "There were probably going to be thousands of animals that were on their own or that the families couldn't take with them."

With Debbie Egan-Chin

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.