FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. - Five Fort Leonard Wood firefighters provided mutual aid fire and rescue assistance to Kennett, Mo., last weekend.
"The boot-heel of Missouri has been devastated by the ice storm (Jan. 26 and 27)," said Robert Sperberg, Fort Leonard Wood Fire Department assistant fire chief. "Their emergency service providers summoned the State Emergency Management Agency for assistance."
One of the hardest hit areas was the community in and around Kennett in Dunklin County. The storm is responsible for rendering 95 percent of the people without electric power, blocking roadways, damaging structures and destroying or handicapping much of the local infrastructure, Sperberg said.
Mike Drozdo, Fort Leonard Wood Fire Department Training Captain said, "It looked like a tornado left a hundred-mile swath of destruction."
President Obama declared the area a federal disaster area, Monday.
"There was massive devastation," said Brian West, Engine Company lieutenant. "There were trees on houses, trees on cars, trees that were two feet across shattered all the way down their trunks. We were crossing the high (power) lines, and there were 10 poles in a row down, which is a mile in each direction."
When a disaster or large-scale emergency occurs that is beyond the capabilities of local resources to manage, the local community sends a request to the State Emergency Management Agency for assistance.
The Missouri Division of Fire Safety coordinated mutual aid for the overtaxed Kennett and Dunklin county fire departments, Sperberg said. Fort Leonard Wood's firefighters took part in the second wave of mutual aid to the region.
The Fort Leonard Wood fire department was overwhelmed with volunteers when they put out the mission to their fire fighters.
"We had to turn firefighters away," Sperberg said. "They only needed five, and we had three times that many - easy - who were willing to drop what they were doing and help."
The firefighters manned two fire stations for 48 hours starting Friday. Firefighters from Waynesville, St. Robert and Lebanon also took part in the mutual aid effort, bringing the total number of firefighters to 12.
When there are disasters, it does not take long for a local fire department to get overwhelmed, Sperberg said.
"Call volumes go up tremendously," Sperberg said. "During the first 24 hours, one of the crews there (in Kennett), in a town of about 1,200 people, got 25 emergency calls."
By Tuesday morning, mutual aide workers had provided 3,000 man-hours; received over 100 emergency calls; and responded to 10 structural fires, multiple carbon monoxide poisonings and a stabbing. Twenty percent of the city residents had power and 16 percent of the rural residents had power, one week after the storm, Sperberg said.
"Once the power comes on, there will be more fires," Drozdo said.
Fires can also be started from people who were cooking or ironing when the power went off. They might leave their home for a shelter and not think to turn off those appliances. When the power is restored, often those people are not home, and fires can start.
"When you lose electricity, you lose power and heating," Sperberg said. "When the electricity goes out, people use alternative methods of heating, such as fireplaces where the flu hasn't been checked in years."
People can suffer from carbon monoxide poisoning after turning on generators to power their homes. Everyday emergencies also become dire in an ice storm when people cannot reach a hospital. People can run out of medications while stuck in their homes, causing medical emergencies.
"We manned the rescue truck," Drozdo said. "We got two serious diabetic calls, ... helped a lady with a fractured ankle who slipped and fell on ice, ... and did welfare checks on people."
Not only are there an increase in need for firefighters to cope with the disaster, those same firefighters also live in the area and are equally affected by the ice storm, Sperberg said.
"We gave their firefighters a chance to go home and help out their families," Brian said.
The community showed their appreciation for the emergency service workers, with churches cooking meals and grocery store owners donating food that would go bad because the power was out.
"I was expecting to eat MREs," West said. "Instead we got home-cooked meals."
The fire department has been tasked to go back to Kennet, today, for another mutual aid shift.
"I want to go back and help," Drozdo said. "It's a good feeling knowing you can help someone else."
Sperberg explained how mutual aid benefits every fire-fighting community, as any community can be hit with a natural disaster. During the ice storm and wildfires of 2007 at Fort Leonard Wood, other communities came and helped out the fire department.
"When that stuff happens here," Sperberg said, "I hope the same number of qualified fire fighters come and help out my family."
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