(COLORADO SPRINGS) — FOX21 News heard from Lieutenant Aaron McConnellogue with the Colorado Springs Fire Department (CSFD), who is back home after helping people impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton. More than 100 first responders, including 14 members from CSFD, were deployed to the southeast part of the U.S. in late September and returned home Mon. Oct. 21. Members of Colorado Task Force 1 (CO-TF1) are on-call for a couple of months at a time. The main job for the CSFD team was to go through more than 33,000 structures in the Clearwater, Florida area, checking each building for damage to see if people living there could safely return. Courtesy: Colorado Task Force 1 "When you run in and you see an entire community that's been devastated it's very disheartening," Lt. McConnellogue said. Colorado’s urban search and rescue task force continues to provide aid in Florida Some members of the team have been on the road since Sept. 25, when they packed up and headed east to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The team was sent to Pinellas County in Florida first, then sent north to Asheville, North Carolina. With the news of Hurricane Milton approaching, CSFD Lt. McConnellogue was deployed with a second group in Clearwater, Florida. "As the hurricane is hitting we were flying into Jacksonville, Florida," Lt. McConnellogue explained. "We had all of our gear, but all the trucks, the vehicles, and all of our other equipment were already there and we jumped on the vehicles and swapped out with the other team right there." In Florida alone, the team worked to assess tens of thousands of homes and businesses. "33,274 structures," Lt. McConnellogue said. "That took us a little bit of time, but we had eyes on every single one of those structures, doing damage assessments." Federal money to help states hit by hurricanes Helene and Milton nears $2 billion With the help of both live search and human remains K9s, the team did locate a missing person. Officials say they found her sheltering in what was left of her house, in an isolated area in McDowell County, North Carolina, with no contact with family since the storm. "People were very thankful just to have us there, even if we weren't directly helping them," Lt. McConnellogue said. Although Southern Colorado is far from hurricane threats, Lt. McConnellogue said the destruction from these hurricanes is similar to the 2013 floods in Manitou Springs. "Homes are wiped off their foundation, nonexistent, or they're piled up in large debris piles from the rivers," Lt. McConnellogue said. As the CSFD first responders rest up, they are taking this experience as an opportunity to make sure our community is prepared for anything. "Every family, every home needs to be prepared," Lt. McConnellogue explained. "Here locally, Peak Alerts is a great way for our community to get information and get it very quickly. The more our community is prepared, the less risk is put on our rescuers." Peak Alerts is used by public safety officials in El Paso and Teller County to notify the community about evacuation orders, HAZMAT incidents, shelter-in-place notifications, and more. Should another natural disaster occur, Lt. McConnellogue is waiting for the call to respond. "Ready to go, happy to be out there and help," Lt. McConnellogue said.