Fourteen Sacramento Firefighters are in Galveston, Texas at this hour as Hurricane Ike comes ashore.
 
Sac Fire spokesman Jim Doucet says they’re with 8 other California fire units at the center of the storm… 
  
 “They’re there as a swift water rescue team.  They’re prepared to do water rescues.  In fact I was just watching one of t-v where a helicopter was getting people out of a pick-up truck that had stalled in some water.  That’s the type of thing that they can do…and they’ve trained for it and they’ve actually done this type of rescue before…”
 
 
The Sacramento Fire Department has had about a dozen rescue workers in the gulf coast area for the past few weeks. 
 
First they were assisting people in Baton Rouge, Louisiana after Hurricane Gustav hit.
 
Many of the same Sac firefighters were in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina three years ago.
 
The state of Texas is paying the expenses of the California firefighters while they’re doing rescue work in Hurricane Ike.