Rock Community Firefighters Return from Joplin

Jim Polk, of the Rock Community Fire Protection District, had just finished his training as a volunteer with Missouri Task Force 1, when he received a call to respond to Joplin, MO, as part of the task force’s response to the EF-5 tornado that devastated the city and claimed at least 139 lives on May 22.

Polk and fellow Rock Community firefighter Mike Shafferkoetter were part of an 85-member team deployed to Joplin to assist in search and rescue efforts in the hours immediately following the tornado.

Missouri Task Force 1 is a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Urban Search and Rescue Task Force made up of firefighters, doctors, engineers, rescue dogs, communications specialists, heavy equipment operators and other specialists throughout Missouri whose expertise might be useful during disaster.

“The first members of our team got there within a couple hours,” Polk said. “We got down there about 1 a.m. and went out searching homes on Sunday night (the night of the tornado). It was complete devastation.”

The task force spent its first 18 hours in Joplin searching residential areas for survivors. They were then deployed to the site of the collapsed Home Depot store, where they conducted search and recovery operations. They also searched a Wal-Mart and other destroyed commercial buildings before returning home on Wednesday, May 25.

“Unfortunately, there were no live rescues,” Polk said. “It’s disheartening. We actually thought we would come across some that were still trapped. It was kind of surprising. But the local firefighters did a good job of pulling people out before the regional response got there.”

Shafferkoetter described the scene of destruction in Joplin as life changing.

“You can look at pictures," he said. "You can look at video. People can tell you about it, but there’s no way to describe it unless you saw it firsthand.” 

Three other members of the fire district were deployed to Joplin last week as part of St. Louis Metro Task Force 5, an urban search and rescue team based in Franklin and Jefferson counties in Missouri to conduct secondary searches of residential areas, Polk said. They included Fire Captain Ed Zimmerman and firefighters Dan Tot and Tim Lurkins.

Capt. Bryan Menke, the district's chaplain, also went to Joplin as part of the Baptist Response Team, Polk said.

One rescue Polk and Shafferkoetter were able to make was the recovery of a woman’s cat from her collapsed home.

“That’s all they had left,” Shafferkoetter said. “We got her cat out for her, and she was extremely gratefully. It’s amazing. You do little things like that for people who have nothing left, you give them back some sense of normalcy.”

Task force members are volunteers and must be excused from their regular duties to respond. Polk and Shafferkoetter both praised Rock Community for its flexibility in allowing volunteers to respond when needed. It’s mutually guaranteed assistance, Polk said.

“We all know if this happened around here, God forbid, the task force would come here,” he said.

Rock Community’s Ladies Auxilliary also held a donation drive for Joplin last week, filling two 53-foot moving vans with tarps, Styrofoam coolers, socks, blankets, bedding, soap, shampoo and toys for victims of the tornado.