By Haley Kosik/WJEZ News
Gov. Bruce Rauner has a search and rescue team ready for deployment to assist local responders after a couple fierce storms and tornadoes ripped through some Northern Illinois counties.
The 80-member team is known as Illinois Task Force 1. It’s the state’s urban search and rescue team specializing in training and equipment to support extremely difficult recovery efforts. Along with 80 team members, the group includes trained search canines as well.
Rauner said, “The state is supporting local responders in these hard-hit communities to ensure the safety of people affected by these terrible storms and help them begin the recovery process.”
Following the storms, Monday evening, Rauner activated the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC).
The SEOC was staffed throughout the night with representatives from several state agencies, responder mutual aid organizations and the American Red Cross to ensure response assets and personnel could be quickly deployed to assist local governments and all impacted areas.
Rauner yesterday also issued a state disaster proclamation for Lee and Grundy counties to make available a wide variety of state resources that can help affected communities respond and recover from the storms.
For updates on the current situation, visit the Ready Illinois website at www.ready.illinois.gov.
In other news, Joliet Junior College has received a grant to highlight Latino culture and history.
The Joliet Herald-News reports that currently 23 percent of students at the school are Latino.
The school is one of more than 200 organizations around the country to receive the National Endowment for the Humanities grant.
The school will participate in the American Library Association and endowment’s “Latino Americans: 500 Years of History” project.
Michelle Roman-Garcia multicultural student affairs director at the college said the school had a Latino club in the 1990s and in 2003 an office was opened to help Latino students and students from different ethnic backgrounds.
Roman-Garcia said the grant will provide more outreach efforts like bringing in speakers.
