2010
In the year of 2010 New Sharon’s Fire & Rescue Squad sent 4 of their members to Carroll, Iowa to assist in the cleanup of storm damage, they were joined by two members of the Oskaloosa Fire Department, Oskaloosa, Iowa.
Fire & Rescue officers in 2010 were Fire Chief – Steve Gerard, Assistant Chief’s – Stan Munn, Brad Latcham, and Captain’s – Terry DeCook, Grady Lewis, and Kelly Mick.
Insurance Services Office awarded a Public Protection Classification for New Sharon a 7/8B rating.
2011
May 22nd – An EF 5 Tornado struck Joplin Mo. Communication was made to Joplin FD offering assistance from NSFD Emergency Response Team. Joplin Fire requested our team to respond to help with secondary Search and Recovery working with K-9 units from Illinois, Tennessee, and Missouri doing body recovery. A total of 9 members made up from New Sharon Fire, Oskaloosa Fire, and Montezuma Fire responded for 4 days.
June 20th – An EF 1 Tornado hit southern city limits of New Sharon. Area was 100 yards wide and approximately ½ mile in length. There was also a downed power lines and tree damage throughout the town. No notice had been given for bad weather in our area.
June 30th – New Sharon Fire department receives State of Iowa Governor’s Volunteer Award for disaster response in Iowa. Five members traveled to Des Moines to receive the award on behalf of the department.
July 11th – Strong winds ripped through Marshall, Tama, and Benton counties in Iowa causing damage to homes and buildings in its path. Emergency Response Team along with Mahaska County CERT Team headed for Vinton Iowa for two days to assist with debris cleanup.
2012
April 14th – Strong storm this Creston Iowa causing damage to hospital and numerous homes and farms. Four members from NSFD Emergency Response Team respond to assist with debris clean up.
November – Super Storm Sandy strikes the areas of New Jersey and New York City. Total communities are gone, wide spread power outages, and fuel rationing was put into place. Emergency Response Team makes the call to offer help and is requested to report to New York City. Team reported to Friends of Firefighters for 10 days helping firefighters with cleanup and salvage. Group was meet by firefighters from Biloxi whom they had meet and worked for when Katrina struck back in 2005. They also worked with two firefighters from France. While in New York, the group lived out of the Red Hook Station which housed the first paid New York firefighters.
173 calls to service this year.
2013
May 26th – Heavy rains pounded the North Skunk River basin causing flooding to numerous communities. New Sharon Fire was notified that evening that water was coming up on Highway 146 north of New Sharon. Before it was all over, Highway 146 north of town was closed as well as Highway 63 east of New Sharon. Sand bagging operations using boats to transport personnel and sand bags were set up, but the pump house went under water causing New Sharon to be without drinking water for several days. Bottled water was brought in and distributed to residents by Mahaska County CERT.
June 23rd – NSFD Emergency Response Team along with a team from Biloxi Mississippi meet again in Moore Oklahoma to work debris cleanup after a deadly F5 tornado struck that community. Both teams were there for 7 days. While there, both groups lived and worked out of Yukon High School which had volunteered their Sports Complex for us to stay.
Seven members of NSFD have attended classes and training and have attained their Hazmat Technician level and will be part of the Mahaska County Hazmat Team.
2014
July 19th – The Disaster Team responded to the Canton, South Dakota area for several days to work flood clean up from the Big Sioux River. The team returned on the night of July 22nd due to local flooding from North Skunk River that was causing concern about loosing New Sharon’s pumps at the pump-house located north of New Sharon along the banks of the river. We were out on the river early the next day pumping out the water in the pump house until the river water level had subsided.
November 13th – NSFD was paged at 18:57hrs for a house fire in Taintor IA. The reporting party stated that there was a house fully engulfed and one person was still inside the structure; the Iowa State Fire Marshall was notified. Six surrounding fire departments responded to assist with the need for water. The victim was found around 4:00am the following morning.
The New Sharon Ambulance was notified by the Emergency Medical Services of Iowa that we would be receiving the Volunteer Service of the Year award. We had been nominated by Mahaska County Emergency Management manager Jamey Robinson for our service to the community.
December 31st – A busy year came to an end with 71 calls to service for fire, extraction, and hazmat. Our ambulance responded to 125 calls this year.