Flax praised the grant writers who got the money in on time so they didn’t have to go about rescues the old-fashioned way, using boats to extricate people from vehicles one or two at a time.

“At one point in time, from the stories I was told, the apparatus actually hit a street where there were submerged cars lined up, and they were just able to go down and grab everybody down the street,” he said.

Flax said once his firefighters are officially trained on the vehicle, it will probably be more important for water rescues. For now, it was used exclusively to remove people from flooded vehicles.

Sherrill said the state is constantly looking for more resiliency efforts as extreme weather events continue to occur more frequently due to the effects of climate change.

The state Office of Emergency Management will review claims from people who lost items, from heaters and other home appliances to cars swept away by the storms, which caused major flooding across the city and surrounding areas.

“Some of the applications we will have for federal assistance will be very technical, so we are asking people to report them so we can calculate them,” Sherrill explained.

Whether there will be federal funding remains in the air because officials still have to calculate if the damages meet federal thresholds.