The City of New Orleans is sending members of the New Orleans Fire Department and Office of Homeland Security Agents as part of Incident Management Team to the Island of Puerto Rico to help assist with recovery efforts from Hurricane Maria.

The 10 person team will leave New Orleans on Thursday and return on December 15th.

Because of New Orleans' experience with disaster recovery, the team will be providing incident management support to local personnel in some of the hardest hit areas of Puerto Rico.

Similar teams have been deployed by the city to assist with response efforts to Hurricane Harvey in Port Arthur, Texas, and Hurricane Irma in Monroe County, Florida.

This team is being deployed at a request through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a nationally-adopted mutual aid agreement through which states can request help or provide assistance to other states during a disaster.