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L.A. County Fire Department search-and-rescue team is ready to go to Haiti

By Alexandra Zaviswriter 
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A Los Angeles County Fire Department search-and-rescue team is packed and ready to go to Haiti after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked the Caribbean island nation, officials said this morning.

The 72-member heavy rescue task force received a request for help Tuesday from the U.S. Agency for International Development and is waiting at a staging area in Pacoima while authorities finalize the logistical details of the deployment, said county fire inspector Frederic Stowers.

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“These things do take time,” he said. “A lot of it has to do with surveying the damage, making sure we can get them in safely.”

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-- Alexandra Zavis


Photo gallery: Earthquake hits Haiti | Twitter: Reports from Haiti | Resources: How to help

Top photo: Equipment and supplies are being loaded on trucks at the Los Angeles County Fire Department urban search and rescue facility in Pacoima en route to Haiti in the aftermath of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
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Alexandra Zavis

Alexandra Zavis is a former writer and editor on the Los Angeles Times’ Foreign Desk who has reported from more than 40 countries. She spent a decade with the Associated Press, covering Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, among other war-torn places. After joining The Times in 2006, she has served as a Baghdad correspondent and as a California reporter covering poverty and veterans issues. She is a recipient of the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Award for distinguished reporting on foreign affairs and was part of teams of reporters awarded the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award for foreign correspondence and APME’s International Perspective Award. She is a graduate of Oxford University and City University in London.

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