01:12 PM EDT on Friday, September 23, 2005

By 13News

35 medical personnel from Virginia, including some from Hampton Roads, will return Friday afternoon after spending two weeks helping Hurricane Katrina survivors in Mississippi.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency activated Federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team One in Virginia. The team includes includes doctors, nurses, paramedics and other medical staff who'll be gone for two weeks to Biloxi, Mississippi.

As of September 4, about a dozen members had been deployed as part of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

While some members are coming home, others are already deployed to prepare for Hurricane Rita. According to the team's Web site, 41 members of VA-1 DMAT were deployed as of Wednesday. That number includes a full 38 member DMAT team, a plans officer assisting with federal response management and 2 members augmenting logistics and communications needs.

The VA-1 DMAT was formed in 2002 and is sponsored by The City of Norfolk Fire - Rescue, along with York County Fire and Life Safety, the Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services and Tidewater Emergency Medical Services Council have formed this federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) in Virginia.

The National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) exists to provide medical care in the United States following disaster that damages and/or overwhelms existing local medical resources and infrastructure. Formerly a part of the United States Public Health Service, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 transitioned NDMSto the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate in the Department of Homeland Security.

DMATs are typically 35 person mobile medical units deployed to augment local health care personnel and facilities in times of disaster. DMATs are capable of standing up self-supporting temporary emergency medical care centers, providing supplemental medical staff for hospitals following disasters and providing airhead support for the movement of casualties from a disaster area to available health care resources in unaffected areas of the nation.