SC Guard troops leave on Puerto Rico mission

The first group of South Carolina Army National Guard engineer soldiers left McEntire Joint National Guard Base outside Columbia on Sunday evening headed for Puerto Rico.

The unit of about 150 soldiers and 60 vehicles will be helping in recovery efforts after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. The South Carolina soldiers are assigned to the 122nd Engineer Battalion headquartered in Edgefield and the 178th Engineer Battalion in Rock Hill.

The soldiers are part of a larger multistate task force that includes North Carolina, Louisiana and New York forces, according to an Army news release.

They will be clearing roads to reach areas cut off since the Category 4 hurricane crossed Puerto Rico Sept. 20 and helping to get infrastructure restored. They are bringing bulldozers, front-end loaders, dump trucks and chain saws, the news release says.

They could be in Puerto Rico for up to 60 days.

“I am always so proud of our South Carolina soldiers who are ready at a moment’s notice to help our fellow neighbors in need, even hundreds or a thousand miles away,” U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Robert E. Livingston Jr., the adjutant general for South Carolina, said in the news release.

This unit also supported the recovery operations in South Carolina after Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

This story was originally published October 2, 2017 at 9:15 AM with the headline "SC Guard troops leave on Puerto Rico mission."