Surry County Emergency Services Director Eric Southern provided an update Monday evening to the Board of Commissioners on efforts in the storm ravaged parts of the state. He said that Surry County has supplied nearly everything that has been requested but that the needs will soon be evolving as the weather changes.
“As everybody knows, the devastation in Western North Carolina is still ongoing. There’s a lot of pictures that are starting to come out now on social media. There’s also a lot of untruths and rhetoric that are out there on social media as well,” Southern said.
“There are still areas that they haven’t got into yet, the search efforts are still ongoing. They technically have not switched over to a recovery, so there are still active searches are going on,” he said.
He said that as of Monday there were 17 Urban Search and Rescue teams and 40 swift water teams that are still out working. “Those USR teams go in between structural collapse to water, wilderness, you name it and they can pretty much search anything that’s out there. There are also around 500 firefighters and 328 ambulances that are up there and two field hospitals that are in operation,” he said.
Surry County has been able to provide support in the form of equipment and personnel to Helene cleanup and recovery. Southern said the county, “Has actually been able to provide several roles, everything from sending resources to moving equipment.”
“We’ve sent a communications specialist up there, he just returned on Saturday. Our emergency manager for the county, Byron Isaacs, he deployed Sunday before last and he is actually in Ashe County as of today. He went to Buncombe County and spent a week up there. I’ll be going somewhere up there after he returns,” he explained.
Brent Robertson, assistant communications director for Surry County 911, told the board that he made a supply run to Beech Mountain and arrived after dark. “The only thing you could see was headlights, but there was a lot of infrastructure damage. You could see the evidence of the flooding in Boone but going up NC Highway194 to Beech Mountain, that was the worst thing we saw — a lot of roads and a lot of power line damage. “
Nick Brown, communications director for Surry County 911, added, “We delivered to Beech Mountain’s Town Hall a generator from Randolph County. We picked up in Morganton and we delivered it and just dropped it off up there and come straight back to Surry County that night that we went up there.”
Chairman Van Tucker asked Southern if there had been anything asked of the county that they had been unable to deliver. “We’ve pretty much responded and we’ve sent generators, AM radio stations, personnel, communications staff, and I know you’ve coordinated with sheriff’s departments, and they’ve made some deployments up there. I also know we have extended out to Alleghany County the ability to use one of our sites over at the old Elkin landfill to bring their waste down.”
“I have been extremely happy to see the response, but do you know of anything that else that we can do for them?”
Southern said the county was doing everything possible to help official responses and to help aid civilians and nonprofits get their donated supplies to areas in need. “There is nothing that has been asked of Surry County that has not been provided so far. Anything they have asked we’ve been able to provide and have had a lot of resources on standby that have not been used.”
He said a request to send firefighters to Buncombe County got a very quick response from firefighters locally who volunteered, but it was fulfilled by another community before they could ship out.
He added, “A few minutes ago I was talking to Byron Isaacs, and he was trying to get another request in Ashe County filled and before we could get our guys on it, they had already had somebody else that had come up there. So, we’re getting ready to fill another request in Buncombe County now.”
Southern directed the commissioners and the public to the North Carolina State Emergency Management’s website where there are officials links to requested needs for counties and donation sites.
He added, “There’s also a page on there about rumor control that kind of talks about some of the things that’s rumors versus what’s actually true. There’s also a lot of links on there about other agencies, contact information for them, roads that are out, and information like that on that page as well.”
Tucker asked if the needs for assistance were likely to change. “As time goes on, will it shift more from water and food, for example, to clothing and winter type stuff and protection, that kind of stuff?”
“They’re already seeing the change in the weather up there,” Southern replied. “They had a search and rescue team that had went out, I believe from Hickory, Saturday morning and the area that they were getting deployed into it was around 30 degrees between the mountains. So yeah, it’s definitely going to change.”
Commissioner Eddie Harris offered thanks to State Sen. Eddie Settle and House Speaker Pro Tempore Sarah Stevens for financial responsibility. “You hear the term rainy day fund. Not too many years ago, I can remember when there was no rainy day fund, there was no fund balance. We owed the federal government several billion dollars. The rainy day fund in North Carolina, I think now it exceeds $4 billion, something like that. Well, guess what? The rainy day is here.”
Vice Chair Mark Marion said to Southern, “Thank you for the job you’re doing and keep up the good work. All that I can do is say I’m here to support you and to let us know what you need, and we’ll do our best to get it for you and other than that, I’ll get out of your way, let the experts handle it.”
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