Ohio State doctor details Asheville devastation from the front lines of Helene's wake

Dr. Nicholas Kman has been deployed six times to provide aid in the aftermath of a hurricane. Of those six, Hurricane Helene is the biggest in his 15 years on Ohio Task Force 1.

The emergency medicine physician with the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center left last week for Florida with over 80 members of the Dayton-based Ohio Task Force 1, a Federal Emergency Management Agency Urban Search and Rescue Task Force, ahead of the hurricane's landfall.

"The scope of this storm, and in terms of the number of the amount of geography that it covers, is pretty historic," Kman told The Dispatch from the task force's base of operations amid the destruction.

More: Helene death toll over 160; water issues, power outages persist: Live updates

The task force, made up of emergency personnel specializing in search and rescue efforts of collapsed structures and water, emergency medicine, handling of hazardous materials and other needs for a disaster zone, arrived in Florida Sept. 24, but has since been rerouted to Asheville, North Carolina and the surrounding communities.

Despite being hundreds of miles from where Hurricane Helene initially hit Florida's coast, the mountain area has been devastated by heavy rains and resulting floods that are crumbling roads, destroying houses and businesses and leaving thousands without power or drinking water.

Nearly 60 people have died in and around Asheville, a beloved tourist haven, and many more are still missing. In total, more than 200 people have been reported dead across the southeastern United States thus far.

Mountain terrain provides unique challenge for aid efforts

While any recovery effort after a storm is grueling, Kman noted that due to the mountainous region, search and rescue efforts and stabilizing collapsed buildings are even harder due to the terrain and lack of cell service, which makes communicating their response more difficult. The houses and other structures are more spread out, slowing down search and rescue operations.

"When we were in Florida, we could search an entire neighborhood by the coast, just driving down the streets, kind of in a matter of minutes..." Kman said. "It's incredible how difficult it is to navigate this response, just given the location and the devastation."

More: Aerial images show Hurricane Helene aftermath

As an emergency physician, Kman's primary job is to keep the personnel on the task force in top shape as they go into possibly dangerous environments to rescue people and determine levels of damage, but he's also providing care to anyone who needs it within his reach. He's seen what he calls a lot of "wear and tear" issues, like cuts and scrapes, muscle soreness, bruising and rashes. A main priority has been getting out those with severe disabilities or those with medical conditions that kept them homebound and bringing them to safety.

But now, Kman said, it's getting to the point where search and rescue operations may find fewer live victims and more remains.

"We're going to continue to do rescue, but at some point, you know, it may become a recovery mission," Kman said somberly. "It'll be a matter of going into all the structures and marking them and trying to find victims that need to be located, need to be extricated or evacuated."

Kman expects that his task force, at least, has another week's worth of work left before heading home. But the people of the community he's serving don't have such a luxury.

"I will tell you that people will be recovering from this hurricane for years," Kman said. "In a week or two, the news cycle will move on to the next storm or the next, you know, thing, election... the people of Asheville and Tallahassee and Valdosta, Georgia and other places will still be rebuilding. There will be places, just like we saw after Hurricane Katrina, that are never the same."

Samantha Hendrickson is the Dispatch's medical business and health care reporter. She can be reached at shendrickson@dispatch.com

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State doctor details Asheville devastation from the front lines of Helene's wake