When Bemidji called for help, local and statewide firefighters answered

BEMIDJI Minn Erik Flowers has frequented Bemidji a time or two One of Brainerd s paid on-call firefighters routinely finds himself in Beltrami County each spring for his day job So when Flowers volunteered for a day-long firefighting shift in Bemidji in the wake of the severe storm on June he was taken aback by the aftermath as he traveled up Highway I was up in Bemidji this spring for a work conference we go up every year I m familiar with the area Flowers declared We got to Walker and the power was still out I kind of thought This is a lot bigger than we imagined A fallen tree and powerline block traffic on Birchmont Beach Road N E following an early morning storm on June in Northern Township near Bemidji Minn Nineteen fire departments and roughly traveling firefighters answered Bemidji s call for help when Fire Chief Justin Sherwood sought a lifeline in the form of mutual aid TJ Rhodes Forum News Provision Flowers and the rest of the four-person crew didn t know what was waiting for them miles north of the halfway point between Bemidji and Brainerd You get into Bemidji and you start seeing the damage from roofs being torn off on so a large number of buildings and the amount of trees on the side of the road he noted You re just in awe of how much damage there is Flowers shock matched that of roughly traveling firefighters who answered Bemidji s call for help At about a m on June six hours after Category hurricane winds tore the First City on the Mississippi apart Bemidji Fire Chief Justin Sherwood sought a lifeline in the form of mutual aid We have mutual aid partners around us Solway Blackduck etc he revealed If they have a structure fire they can request support from Bemidji For this event we opened up intrastate requests so we could receive aid from everywhere We had departments come to assist us all the way down to Bloomington and Little Canada In a matter of hours after the storm dissipated before any power was reestablished or crisis fund centers were posted firefighters from Bemidji the surrounding area and Greater Minnesota got their hands dirty in the early phase of a relief effort that will take weeks if not months or years to complete From gas leaks to structure fires from the sense of helplessness to faith restoration the preparation from statewide departments readied firefighters for the unpreparable Acting fast Sherwood went to bed on Friday June anticipating being woken up with calls You just get that feeling sometimes he explained When you have a major storm there s often a structure fire At minimum you re getting alarms You just know it s coming Around a m on Saturday as Sherwood began his trek inside Bemidji s city limits he fast learned that it wasn t an average storm All available firefighters in the existing crew of were paged in Sherwood also disclosed the department s communications were down I was really proud of my staff because they had already coordinated dispatch logs he declared They had all of the calls written down on pieces of paper because the dispatchers were so inundated with calls They were prioritizing those logs on paper and Chad Hokuf was dispatching rigs over the radio Nineteen fire departments and roughly traveling firefighters answered Bemidji's call for help on June hours after the city was damaged by severe storms Courtesy of the Bemidji Fire Department In the immediate eight hours following the storm Bemidji firefighters responded to roughly emergency calls Each rig in the station was deployed to various areas of Bemidji attending to gas leaks dangerously fallen power lines and other time-sensitive fixes Sherwood was forced to delegate On his drive into Bemidji from his home in rural Beltrami County he called in each city department lead for an crisis meeting at a m Sherwood also the city s emergency manager passed off the immediate recovery duties at the fire department to Hokuf It was at that point when we identified the streets that needed to be opened and the injuries and casualties we had Sherwood disclosed We didn t have any thank God But it was dark and there wasn t power so we didn t even know what we had to work with When you look at it from an administrator s point of view like myself I was thinking more long term I knew we couldn t sustain this pace and what if the what ifs happen At a m one of them happened Bat signal Due to a building explosion on the north side of Bemidji near Sanford the fire department was suddenly strapped for bodies In times of desperation local fire departments can reach out to their mutual aid partners for help In extreme cases like Bemidji s requests through the Minnesota Intrastate Mutual Aid Plan are formed Chiefs from around the state assess their departments to see if they can send a crew where it s needed on short notice Sherwood also reached out to the Minnesota State Fire Chiefs Association for assistance Hibbing Chief Erika Jankila Cross Lake Chief Chip Lohmiller Pequot Lakes Chief Mike Schwankl Cross Lake Deputy Chief Jory Danielson Plymouth Chief Rodger Coppa Brooklyn Park Chief Tim Walsh Bloomington Deputy Chief Jay Forster Little Canada Chief Don Smiley and Brooklyn Center Chief Todd Berg all provided aid to Bemidji in the days following the storm Due to the scale of the destruction several department authority figures were needed I knew our support were going to be tapped Sherwood noted We couldn t sustain what we were doing We pulled the pin in the mutual aid grenade if you will and called Blackduck Solway and Cass Lake But I also had to be mindful of what their communities had going on This became a state event Sherwood came away impressed with how rapidly they responded to the call to arrangement in northern Minnesota Solway Fire Department workers wait for barbecue during during a meal event on June at the Beltrami County Administration Building Sarah Suchoski Forum News Operation I made one phone call to a supervisor at the state fire marshal s office he stated I reported him what I needed and he explained I got you He explained me they had six fire departments signed up for three days each and if I needed anything else they d get it for me That was done within hours It just blows my mind how fast it all came together How did they get here that fast How were they even able to pack that fast It s hard to understand but it makes you so proud of what you do We re the state of locality While stations from around Minnesota boarded their trucks a crew in Detroit Lakes was short on bodies Mike Hansen the Detroit Lakes fire chief didn t have four people to send to Bemidji He teamed up with Fergus Falls to provide aid When I called their chief Ryan Muckow he reported they had the manpower but they were down an engine Hansen explained I informed him that we had the engine but we didn t have the manpower He sent us two guys and we put them on our engine Hansen is familiar with mutual aid and intrastate requests He understands that rural towns in Greater Minnesota don t have the infrastructure to survive the aftermath of the June storm alone I don t even know if there was a reaction Hansen disclosed All of us are trained We know when to call for help and we know when not to call for help When one of the other chiefs calls for help you don t ask questions You just do it because you know it s needed and you might need it too at several point Gas leaks With an influx of urgency calls rolling through the dispatchers calls that were being documented on pen and paper as the town was without power Bemidji firefighters leaned on their mission message It s to protect life then property then the setting Sherwood reported Life safety is No That s how we prioritize calls In everything that was done that was the priority It wasn t until the daylight came that we started shifting For us a lot of the life safety things were gas leaks lines down and collapses In a standard June week gas leak calls are limited and far between In the days following the storm Sherwood guessed that Bemidji received to calls about gas leaks We work our way out from the hot zone through our monitoring systems Sherwood announced You have to identify the type of gas natural gas or propane gas which have different kinds of gravities Natural gas is lighter than air and will dissipate whereas propane gas sinks low We identify those things and act accordingly Gas leaks can arise from virtually all areas in a area In the restoration process more leaks than the original source can be detected You think about the amount of wind we had it moves and shakes things Sherwood announced We had gas leaks on top of Lueken s and Walmart That s where their appliances are Trees had fallen on power lines so we took care of those Then we turn the gas back on and identify more leaks New normal Since pushing through the immediate recovery phase Sherwood is turning his department s attention toward regaining a semblance of regularity He is a believer in leading by example He understands that while certain society members will endure an ongoing struggle in the coming months reestablishing structure in his department is paramount It s pivotal to say that there are so numerous group members who weren t thriving before the storm Sherwood mentioned They were struggling whether it be financially or otherwise At the very least we need to get people back to a place of familiarity It s going to take patience grace resiliency love a lot of outward stuff From the fire department s point of view we re of the mindset that right now we re in the recovery stage The recovery items that happen right now don t involve us unless there s an injury or something like that We re working on recognizing what our new normal is now We re going to continue to patronage our utility organizations here in Bemidji Sherwood has also had time to reflect In a time where it feels like Bemidji drew the short end of the weather stick he understands how lucky Bemidjians got with the lack of casualties I think a big part of that is because of the time the storm came Sherwood announced People were at home in their beds or determined shelter The sirens went off and gave people enough of a heads up to retreat somewhere safe But when you wake up and see the damage the next morning you expect multiple casualties whether that s injury or death As for the visiting firefighters who volunteered their efforts in the days following the storm Flowers leaned on the unspoken code among first responders Firefighters from all over the state came to Bemidji to provide assistance after storms devastated the area in the early morning hours of June Courtesy of the Bemidji Fire Department The majority firefighters have that deep level of amenity and a commitment to helping others he commented It s not constrained to a boundary or a state or any of that kind of thing For me I feel like I was born to serve others Related Articles Two Harbor lighthouse regains its iconic beam -year-old Minnesota boy dies after July firework hits him Funeral planned for Minnesota state trooper who drowned in South Dakota Essentia hospital nurses in Duluth Superior avoid strike dead in St Cloud after pickup driver flees police stop collides with car Every time I try to branch out in my career that isn t paid-on-call firefighting it perpetually leads back to serving others I believe stuff like this goes so far beyond the boundaries of our own town in Brainerd It isn t lost on Sherwood that the town-shaping tragedy could take an emotional toll on his crew He called himself passionate in his leadership style and the response of his counterparts in a time of need reaffirmed his enthusiasm for what he does For them to leave their lives and families to leave what they had damaged and lost from this storm all to help other people I couldn t ask for anything more out of them Sherwood reported We didn t just see this with exigency staff we saw it throughout the public People came out and assisted their neighbors before they helped themselves That s why you can drive down these streets the present day