During my career, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard the phrase, “That will never happen here.” Whether the comment refers to massive wildfires, plane crashes into a frozen river or an underground Metro wreck, I think we’ve demonstrated that anything can happen anywhere.
Any time you think you’ve seen it all, I want you to reflect on the events of the past several days – the unimaginable scenarios unfolding across the country in the wake of Hurricane Helene. Here we’ll consider three incidents that directly impacted the fire and EMS industry.
Understanding the weather “why”
A quick analysis of the “why” here is prudent before we delve into the individual incidents.
Many people have expressed amazement at the catastrophic devastation in the North Carolina and Tennessee mountains, as compared to Florida at Hurricane Helene’s landfall. I’ve lived in the mountains of West Virginia and currently in Florida. While serving as an emergency services/emergency management director in West Virginia, we knew that significant flooding in every one of our creek and river valleys was likely when more than a few inches of rain would fall.
River valleys versus the coastal plains of Florida are dynamically different terrains and ecosystems that handle water volume and flow in unique ways. The sandy soils of Florida absorb inches of water far more efficiently than the mountain rock soils and stream beds could ever allow. Equally important, slope and elevation changes in the mountains provide lift and velocity to flowing water – conditions that Florida just doesn’t see.
While most of the west coast of Florida received record storm surges from 5 to 20 feet, those surges are very limited in inland distance. Rainfall in Florida was minimal compared to other storms, from as little as 1 inch in some of southwestern Florida to more than 8 inches at landfall. Conversely, the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee received +/- 30 inches of rain over a three-day period, as Helene hooked west and set up in a stagnant swirl of over western Kentucky. Yes, 140-mph winds are devastating but decrease exponentially from landfall. It is storm surge, however, that causes most of the life safety and infrastructure concerns we see in the coastal plain areas.
Thirty inches of rain added to mountain and stream valleys, along with the fact that most construction and development in mountainous areas has typically been river and valley based (because it is much easier to access and rivers provided ready water supply), made for catastrophic flooding conditions. In a nutshell, the difference between valley and coastal waterflow and the difference in volume of water explains why the devastation is so much more pronounced in the mountains than it has been in the coastal plain. Make no mistake about it, there are lots of folks in the coastal plain area who have and will lose everything as a result of this storm. The mountain areas, however, are suffering far broader effects across Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.
Let’s now turn to three significant incidents that unfolded over the past few days.
S.C. LODD: Tree falls on fire truck
Nearly 100 people have been killed in the storm. Two of the early deaths were volunteer firefighters from Saluda County, South Carolina. Saluda County, located about 45 miles west of Columbia, South Carolina, is served by an all-volunteer fire service. The two firefighters were operating out of the Circle Volunteer Fire Department station.
Chief Chad Satcher, 53, and Firefighter Landon Bodie, 18, were responding to a structure fire at about 6:30 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 27, when their 2000 Navistar fire engine was struck by a falling tree.
The Saluda County Fire Service posted on Facebook that services for Chief Satcher will be held Saturday, Oct. 5, at 11 a.m., at the Batesburg-Leesville High School Fine Arts Center with interment to follow in Ridge Crest Memorial Park. The family will receive family and friends from 4-6 p.m., Friday, Oct. 4 at the Milton Shealy Funeral Home of Batesburg. Service information for Firefighter Bodie is unknown at this time.
Unicoi County Hospital, Tennessee
While watching the stories unfold, word of possible dam failures began to percolate out of Tennessee and North Carolina. It will take some time to determine exactly what happened with the dams; however, the flood’s fury was on full display as the unthinkable unfolded at Unicoi County Hospital, a one-story, 10-bed in-patient facility.
I spoke with Ballad Health Chairman and CEO, Alan Levine, about the scenario at the hospital:
Levine relayed how the warnings of potential flooding came in, and how they were actively in the process of evacuating patients when water began to rise at the hospital grounds. Within a matter of 15 to 20 minutes, well before the evacuation could be complete, the hospital was inundated and inaccessible. Ambulances that made it to the property could not make it to the building and were submerged on the property in the rising waters. Boats were called in.
Levine reported that waters became so furious that they made the decision to move everyone inside the hospital, which now included these ambulance providers, to the roof of the hospital. Motorboats that had made it to the building as part of the secondary evacuation attempt now could not leave because of the swiftwater and saturation of debris.
Inside, not everyone could make it to the roof. Multiple patients simply could not be brought to the roof and were placed in the now stranded boats, which were tethered to the building. Hospital staff would sit with those patients in boats, and available helicopters would arrive to lift them out.
Ultimately, the patients and staff trapped on those boats and more than 50 people on the roof were all rescued by helicopters brought in to assist. Virginia State Police helicopters took turns performing at least 20 rescues, while multiple other helicopters assisted as well. Patients and staff were brought to the Unicoi County High School, where a triage and reunification center was established, and patients could be relocated to other hospitals.
More than 24 hours later, the hospital is still inaccessible, and Levine reports the facility is likely a total loss. Time will tell whether there’s anything to salvage, but all patients and staff were successfully accounted for. The CEO asked that we pass along the opportunity to contribute to their hospital team members. He advised that 100% from this donation will go toward assisting Ballad Health members directly impacted by the storm.
Butler, Tennessee, fire station
We were shocked to see a devastating video out of Butler, Tennessee, showing the Elks Mills Poga Volunteer Fire Department’s station and their response equipment being demolished and swallowed into the overflowing Elk River that flows into Watauga Lake. In the stunning video being recorded from atop the E.C. Miller Bridge, the station is shown being splintering apart, and a water tanker (tender) is seen floating upside down before sinking into the depths.
A department Facebook post reads: “Our community has been devastated. The amount of damage and destruction is catastrophic and truly hard to fathom. Unfortunately, our fire department building is sitting somewhere in the Watauga Lake, along with our tanker ….” The post goes on to say, “but we aren’t just a building, we’re people. We’re people who believe in our community and have been called to serve those in it.”
Sometimes it is difficult for “big city” firefighters to understand the rural nature of most of the country’s fire companies – and the limited resources. It is easy to go from provider to victim with the flip of a switch. It is apparent, however, that while the department is in deep need, that they continue to serve as they can. The community and response partners are rallying around Elks Mills Poga, helping both the department and the community recover. I communicated with one of the department’s members recently, as department members were helping set up a community staging area.
Supplies are being airlifted into the area, and helicopters are being used as the preferred (in some cases only) means of moving people from point A to point B. The fire department further said on Facebook, “This is not a quick fix situation, and our community will forever be changed by this event. We are forever grateful for the support and assistance of the Carter County Rescue Squad, the National Guard, Red Cross, Nashville Fire and Mayor Woodby, all of whom have hand delivered supplies. We are also grateful to all of you who have reached out and brought supplies in.”
We will continue to follow the progress and trust that our fire service community will rally around this company, and others that have surely been affected by this flooding tragedy. The fire department has established a GoFundMe page.
What’s next?
At the time of this writing, over 2 million people are going on 72 hours without power or other critical services. Asheville, North Carolina, is just one of many communities that has been cut off from all access for the past 72 hours. Emergency management agencies will continue to work their plans and work through neighborhoods, conducting damage and needs assessments.
FEMA prepositioning of assets toward Florida turned extremely fortuitous for the entire region, as some assets staged in Georgia were quickly able to be redeployed to these other areas. For days to come, there will likely be significant infrastructure repair needs across the entire area – think roads/bridge damages, water/sewer/gas/power supplies, traffic lights and cell/internet capacities, not to mention the aforementioned fire station damages.
The local, state and federal task forces and teams will continue to conduct operations one community at a time, until some sense of stability has returned. This will certainly be a marathon.
Suffice to say that the “never happen here” refrain has indeed happened somewhere, and the next time, it could be your community or your firehouse. It CAN happen here. Are you ready?
