In the early morning hours of Thursday, June 2, just hours after tornadoes ripped through western Massachusetts the previous afternoon, Wareham Fire Chief Robert McDuffy got the call.

A Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency task force for Plymouth County, headed by McDuffy and consisting of area fire departments, was going to be dispatched to Springfield to assist emergency authorities.

McDuffy, along with five of his Wareham firefighters and four Onset firefighters, assembled at 5 a.m. and traveled to Middleborough where they met with Middleborough, Lakeville, Bridgewater, Marion, Mattapoisett, and Rochester firefighters.

With ten engines and six ladder trucks, the convoy of emergency responders made its way north on Interstate 495, headed to one of the hardest hit areas of the storm.

"You think about things as you're preparing to go to this," Onset Fire Captain Howard Andersen recalled Friday afternoon from the upper floor of the Onset fire station, the toll of Thursday's 16-plus-hour day showing on his face. A slideshow of photos from the previous day played on a loop on a projection screen.

The firefighters had no idea what they'd find once they got to Springfield.

"We had to keep an open mind to a variety of things that we'd be doing," Andersen continued.

Images of the destruction on television news reports had given the team some idea of the extent of the damage.

At least four people were dead.

"We try to prepare for everything," McDuffy explained.

But nothing could adequately prepare the firefighters for what they saw.

"I've been in a few tornadoes, but to go and work in the aftermath of one...," Onset firefighter Jeff Dias trailed off.

The Plymouth County task force made its way to the Basketball Hall of Fame - the "staging area" for the emergency responders. There, the team was given an ambulance and an assignment.

"[Emergency crews] carved out an area where the path of destruction was" and assigned the Plymouth County team to search and rescue efforts, McDuffy said.

The team entered the destroyed homes and buildings, looking for any medical emergencies as well as hazards such as downed wires, gas leaks, and structures that were in danger of collapsing, explained task force member and Wareham Fire Captain Matthew Rowley.

"You watch [the news reports] on TV, but it does no justice," McDuffy said.

The sentiment that was echoed by nearly all of the task force's members.

“The roads weren't passable. There's debris everywhere. There are trees down ... and we're talking 3-foot [trunks of] elms and oaks. These trees were huge," recalled Wareham Fire Captain Mark Rogers. "Houses destroyed. Cars destroyed. Personal possessions all over the place. Just a big mess.”

The firefighters had to carry their supplies - hand tools and saws, among other equipment - down the debris-covered streets.

"What I saw the most of there, that really made me feel good, was that the worst things bring the best out of people," said Rogers. “There were neighbors helping neighbors. ... Helping dig through their rubble."

In the middle of one street, in a clearing between the mess, a neighbor who had a functioning generator had plugged in a small fridge. Another neighbor had a working grill and brought it over. Then they cooked food and fed the neighborhood, Andersen said.

The firefighters made their way down each of the streets they were asked to check. Making the task even more difficult?

"There were no street signs left," Andersen said.

Dias reiterated: "Words can't describe it and the pictures don't do it any justice."

The firefighters met a man whose house was completely ripped off its foundation. He was sitting on what was once his front porch. And he was smiling, Andersen recalled.

Someone asked the man why he was smiling. How he could smile after he'd just lost everything. The man had hidden in his basement while the tornado destroyed his home.

"I'm alive," the man had responded.

The Plymouth County task force was released at 6 p.m. and the firefighters were home in Wareham at roughly 9 p.m.

McDuffy said he was proud of his crew.

"They worked their tails off," he said. "We had little to no downtime."

In addition to those previously mentioned, firefighters David Wahlstrom, Walter Pierce, and W. James Rawlings from the Wareham Fire Department were part of the Plymouth County task force. From the Onset Fire Department, Brittany Andersen and Justin Harrington also responded.

Many said it was an experience they won't soon forget.

"It puts life in a whole different perspective," said Andersen. "When you're driving through a city that's been affected and a whole neighborhood has been destroyed... It's moving."

Wareham firefighter deployed on federal search and rescue team

As his Wareham colleagues were notified of their impending departure, Wareham firefighter Patrick Haskell, a member of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Urban Search and Rescue Team for Massachusetts, was hitting the ground in Springfield.

Activated at 9 p.m. Wednesday, the Beverly-based FEMA task force was in Springfield by 3 a.m. Though that task force had been sent to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and to New York City after the September 11 terrorist attacks, it had never responded to a tornado.

"The areas that we were in was total devastation. ... Just utter devastation," said Haskell, a hazardous materials specialist and member of the task force for nearly four years.

The team of New England-based firefighters, paramedics, doctors, and even a veterinarian was deployed for 48 hours and searched more than 500 buildings for hazards.

"It was just an unbelievable sight," Haskell said. "That was my first tornado. Hopefully it's my last. ... You don't want to see people have to go through that and have their lives turned upside down."

Firefighter responds with Red Cross

Wareham call firefighter and EMT Patricia McGarry deployed to Springfield with the Cape & Islands chapter of the Red Cross on June 6 to help with disaster assessment.

"It was quite an experience," McGarry said, adding that there are workers in Springfield from every Red Cross chapter in every New England state. "What a response! What a response form everybody."

In addition to her work as a call firefighter and EMT, McGarry is a state employee and thus can take a leave of absence with pay to work with the Red Cross when disaster relief is needed, according to Massachusetts General Law. State workers can be deployed for up to three weeks. McGarry returned home on June 8.

Serving as a supervisor of disaster assessment, McGarry and her colleagues from the Pioneer Valley chapter of the Red Cross sent out teams to various areas to gather statistical data about the extent of the damage caused by the tornadoes.

“I just gravitated to that type of field because of the experience as a firefighter and EMT," she said.

While she was there, McGarry visited downtown Springfield and visited the Red Cross shelter.

"I was very impressed with the professionalism," she said. "Serving, helping, talking to people."