Local Firefighters Volunteered to Joplin Continued
New Sharon Fire Chief Steve Gerard talks about how the opportunity to help Jopin Missouri came about. (photo D.Hubbard) (file photo)
Yesterday, we started our conversation with New Sharon Fire Chief Steve Gerard. Today we finish that conversation and turn our attention to Montezuma Fire Chief Chris Widmer.
With the tornado that struck New Sharon Monday morning, calls offering assistance started coming in; much like his team has offered themselves to other stricken communities.
Gerard said, that with such calls, it is important to call ahead and find out before hand where or if your area of expertise is needed. “You know you just don’t plop in on somebody saying ‘hey, can I help you’ without calling and saying ‘what do you need?’. Because sometimes you become the burden rather than solving the problem, and that’s why I will never take our group and go to Joplin or Biloxi or Parkersburg or go to Carroll or where ever else we have all been unless I’ve got somebody who says ‘I need you, I want you and here’s what you’re going to be doing’, then we’ll go.”
Locally, the departments know each other and that helps in knowing what assets each department brings to the table. “We know one another, we’ve done enough mutual aid stuff with everybody.” Gerard said of the departments that work together locally.
New Sharon Fire isn’t looking back, they are looking forward to the future of where they can be of help. The slow motion disaster of the Missouri River floods has their attention. Gerard has already been in contact with Emergency Management in those areas. And once those people call and say ‘we need your help’, New Sharon will be there to help.
New Sharon Fire has benefit breakfasts from time to time to raise money to help them get to these disasters. Gerard says that cash money would be a huge help in getting our local responders out to disasters like Joplin. If your interested in helping with a donation, you can contact New Sharon Fire at 641.637.2217 or visit their website HERE.
The Montezuma ambulance backs in after a call. Montezuma Fire and Rescue takes care of Montezuma and much of the surrounding countryside.
In my continued interviews with the local fire chiefs that went to Joplin, I turn my attention to Chris Widmer. They, like the other 2 departments that went to Joplin, did mainly search and recovery.
For 3 days of their time, they were teamed up with cadaver dogs in search for the missing. “We didn’t do anything when the president was there.” As is customary when any president is at a disaster area, nearly all operations are stopped.
All 3 local departments, Montezuma included, always remark at the discovery of the basset hound that was recovered after being trapped for 7 days.
I asked them what stuck out in their mind the most about their time in Joplin. “Just the smell of the refrigerators and everything else. All the rotten meat, no electricity in most of it [Joplin]. You have the sewer gas because most of the houses are gone and there’s no traps, so you get all the sewer gas coming up.” Widmer said of impressions they have of being in Joplin.
Widmer said that those that were there, in Joplin, more than welcomed them and their help. “Everywhere you went they thanked you for coming and they offered you water and they offered you food. They were just happy we were there.”
Other than helping at Parkersburg, their trip to Joplin was the first time helping at a major disaster.
The size of the devastation was hard to grasp. It was 20 blocks wide and 6 miles long of complete destruction. As we talked about the size of that disaster, in comparison, it would have been enough to cover Montezuma from the High School, at the furthest to the North, to the new law center and county shop, at the furthest Southerly point. But, then that destruction would have nearly stretched to Deep River, a small community 8 miles East of Montezuma.
This map is one Montezuma Fire and Rescue brought back from Joplin as a reminder of the devistation
“It just leveled everything.” Widmer said while looking at the map of destruction.
They remember Samaritans Purse being there, and having a large group prayer while they were there as well.
I grew up in Montezuma, and I enjoyed joking with the guys from Montezuma Fire. I had to tease them about if they brought back the vehicle in one piece that Vannoy Chevrolet had donated for them to use. They were happy to report that it did in fact return in one piece.
I will continue my discussion with Montezuma Fire and Rescue on Monday, and then turn my attention to Oskaloosa’s Fire Department and Chief Neff.
