Dozens of first responders from Northern Virginia are on their way to Florida in anticipation of Tropical Storm Helene.

Indiana Task Force 1 (IN-TF1) will be deployed to Florida ahead of the landfall of Tropical Storm Helene. The storm formed Tuesday, Sept. 24 in the Caribbean Sea and forecasters said it could strengthen into a major hurricane while moving north toward the U.

Ohio Task Force 1 has been activated due to the potential for Tropical Storm Helene to become a major hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.

VA-TF2 has frequently been activated to assist with natural disaster relief, most recently in August while assisting emergency responders in Georgia and South Carolina respond to Tropical Storm Debby. They went to Florida last year to help respond to Hurricane Idalia, a category 4 storm.

Tuesday, Governor Greg Abbott deployed Texas A&M Task Force 1 to the Sunshine State. The Task Force is one of 28 federal teams under FEMA’s National Urban Search and Rescue System. Headquartered in College Station, it’s one of two statewide search-and-rescue teams under the direction of the Texas Department of Emergency Management.

Another storm system is taking aim at Florida, this time possibly the Panhandle with storm effects all along the Gulf Coast. Tropical Storm Helene, soon to be a hurricane, is sweeping up from the Caribbean Sea into extremely warm waters that are fuel for tropical cyclones.

Helene officially developed into a named storm Tuesday and is expected to make landfall along Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 hurricane this week.

Florida residents are already evacuating and filling sandbags days ahead of the arrival of Tropical Storm Helene, which is forecast to rapidly intensify into a hurricane.