Fire departments preparing early for spring flood season

GREENE COUNTY, Mo. — Local fire departments are already preparing for the spring flooding season. Crews from Battlefield, Ozark, and Logan Rogersville just got back from specialized water rescue training in Florida.

Logan Rogersville Assistant Fire Chief Grant Peters says the department’s swift water rescue team has been around since 2011 but they add to it every year with technology and training.

The training Assistant Chief Peters most recently completed included swimming exercises, rope bridge training, and victim rescuing.

“We went through basically a bunch of scenarios, a bunch of different teaching lectures,” Assistant Chief Peters said. “We had to teach a portion of the class and we were evaluated on our skills towards the end of it, we had to take a written exam to basically pass the class, and then that’s how we were able to certify them as a trainer.”

In recent years the department says they have seen an increase in water rescue calls. Assistant Chief Peters and Captain Josh Grasinger just got back from a week-long certification course in Panama City, Florida, which allows them to teach others swift water rescue training here in the Ozarks.

The Logan Rogersville Fire Protection District is constantly training in all aspects of fire rescue the department says it is always better to have extra training and not need it than to need it and not have it when the time comes.

“We’re seeing it more and more and every year running multiple calls in the spring, and a lot of times they’re pretty dangerous for the people involved,” said Captain Josh Grasinger. “Sometimes it’s just simple walk out and that’s ideal, but a lot of times it’s people trapped in cars and moving water and it happens before they even know it.”

Assistant Chief Peters and Captain Grasinger will put their new certification to use teaching others in their department closer to the spring ahead of the flooding season.

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