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Thirty-four Montgomery County rescue workers have been deployed to the Gulf Coast to assist storm-battered communities recover from Hurricane Ike, which is expected to make landfall in Texas late today or early Saturday.

Members of the county's Urban Search and Rescue Team, also known as Maryland Task Force 1, left for a staging area in Louisiana on Thursday afternoon. Their primary mission will be search and rescue in devastated areas, such as in collapsed buildings, but they will also assist with emergency communications and other tasks as needed, according to county fire rescue spokesman Pete Piringer.

There are 28 Urban Search and Rescue teams across the country that are deployed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in case of emergencies or disasters such as hurricanes, terrorist attacks, dam failures or hazardous material releases.

"The benefit of having a team is you can use them locally," Piringer said.

Montgomery's team is the only stationed in Maryland, according to FEMA. Five other teams from Virginia, Ohio, Florida and Missouri will join the Montgomery team in the Gulf, according to information from county officials.

The teams drive to their locations and are self-sufficient, Piringer said, bringing enough supplies to last about two weeks.

Thursday's deployment is a "light team," less than the usually 80 emergency responders, and included fire rescue personnel, engineers, medical specialists and rescue dogs.

The county team is regularly deployed to emergencies and responded to Hurricane Katrina, Piringer said. After the 2005 disaster, Montgomery doubled its team to about 200 in case a large-scale emergency occurred while the responders were out of the state, he said.