‘Help is on the way.’ A town-by-town look at how the Triangle is aiding Western NC

Hundreds of law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency workers from the Triangle fanned out this week, packing in food and supplies to their emotionally fatigued counterparts in the Western North Carolina mountains.

A group of Henderson County 911 telecommunicators had been on duty three days without a break when Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood said he and Chatham County Sheriff Mike Roberson checked in on them Sunday.

The average person may experience the kind of “critical incident exposure” those workers have been under a few times in a lifetime, he said. The typical emergency worker sees it daily, and it can leave them emotionally and physically drained.

“The devastation and anguish in those deputies and those telecommunicators’ voices and in their hearts are much like those who’ve been at war,” Blackwood said.

The sheriffs drove in from the south through Kings Mountain and Shelby, where they saw piles of trees along the road, ones from atop the mountain uprooting others as they cascaded to the bottom.

Even the rooftops were covered in mud and silt. Where the water had receded, a muddy line marked where the floodwaters had reached 13 to 14 feet above the aptly named Mud Creek, downhill from the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office in Hendersonville.

They urged Sheriff Lowell Griffin, whose own house was flooded, to eat some food and asked what he needed.

“I don’t know,” Griffin responded.

As they sat, a team of deputies came in covered in mud from their knees down, Blackwood said.

They had just pulled the bodies of a family from their home, where they all had drowned, he said.

“They all looked as if they had been pushing a rock up a hill,” he said.

In the county’s 911 center, the staff tried to remain hopeful, but exhaustion was in their eyes, Blackwood said.

“I listened to some of the stories about hearing people take their last breaths on the phone call, where they were calling them for help, and all they could tell them was that nobody was coming to help ... that they couldn’t get to them,” he said.

As they returned home, Roberson, the president of the N.C. Sheriff’s Association, activated the Sheriffs Helping Sheriffs network to round up even more deputies and equipment from across the state.

The response was swift, marshaling nearly 400 public safety personnel from Durham, Wake, Orange and Chatham counties.

“In times like these, it’s important for communities to come together and support one another,” Roberson said. “I want the people of Western North Carolina to know that help is on the way.”

Durham County

The Durham County Sheriff’s Office sent 10 employees and multiple vehicles Tuesday to help with search and recovery, as well as security. Deputies also drove a week’s worth of food to sheriff’s offices in the region over the weekend.

Durham County sent a handful of staff to Asheville, plus a heavy-duty truck and driver to make deliveries. Other staff may rotate in over the next few weeks.

Two volunteer fire departments also sent resources:

▪ Bahama Volunteer Fire Department sent a three-person crew and a brush truck.

▪ Lebanon Volunteer Fire Department sent a fire engine and three firefighters to Bakersville for two weeks on Wednesday.

City of Durham

▪ The Durham Fire Department sent 12 people. Eight traveled to Haywood County before the storm hit, helping evacuate people and pets. Four were sent to Asheville on Monday.

▪ The Durham Police Department is working with the Avery County Sheriff’s Office to collect aid for the region. The most needed items are shelf-stable boxed milk, manual can openers, canned foods and bottled water, the agency said in an email. Drop off donations at the Police Department headquarters, at 602 E. Main St.

Duke hospitals

Duke Health deployed 25 team members to Shelby and is assembling a second team. Duke hospitals are ready to take patients from Western North Carolina as needed.

Wake County

More than 200 personnel from North Carolina’s most populated county have been deployed. That includes at least 56 police officers, 179 firefighters and 13 utilities employees.

In the Triangle, that means adjusted shifts and additional costs to maintain normal service, Holly Springs Police Chief Paul Liquorie said.

While FEMA could reimburse those costs, “municipalities now will have to incur the immediate cost, because that will be somewhat of a lengthy and sometimes bureaucratic process to go through the federal government,” he said.

Liquorie will lead a caravan of 47 officers from five towns on Friday to Ashevilley, where they’ll assist with policing duties and disaster response. Zebulon Police Chief Jacqui Boykin, who sent three officers Sunday to Hendersonville, urged civilians to stay home.

“People want to go, they want to volunteer, they want to donate, and I would say, try to connect with a well-defined program that you’re familiar with,” she said. “As great as it is that everybody wants to fill their car and drive up there, now you’re adding to the issues that they’re having with traffic congestion and crashes, and maybe causing more issues.”

▪ Wake County EMS: Three staff members as part of an Urban Search and Rescue team, four crew members and an ambulance.

▪ Wake Fire Services and Emergency Management : A logistics team will spend two weeks in Buncombe County.

▪ Wake County Sheriff’s Office and Wake County EMS sent therapy dogs to support State Emergency Operations Center personnel and affected residents.

▪ Zebulon : Three police officers, three firefighters.

▪ Apex : Six utility personnel; four firefighters sent to McDowell County

▪ Raleigh : Five water personnel sent to Asheville, 14 firefighters sent to Haywood County, eight firefighters sent to help the Asheville Fire Department.

▪ Raleigh : Sent three dump trucks and a pickup truck loaded with supplies, including 50 tons of pipes to repair water systems; a fire engine, a high-water rescue vehicle; and a logistics vehicle from the fire department

▪ Wake Forest : At least 12 firefighters sent to Bakersville

▪ Cary : Eight firefighters from the swiftwater rescue team sent to Lenoir; nine firefighters sent to the Asheville Fire Department. Two utility managers and a deputy police chief sent to support State Emergency Operations Center in Hickory. Twelve police officers sent to Asheville.

▪ Garner : Eight police officers sent to Asheville, four fire and rescue personnel sent to Mitchell County.

▪ Rolesville : Five police officers sent to Hendersonville.

▪ Fuquay-Varina : Two firefighters sent to the Columbus Fire Department in Polk County.

▪ Holly Springs : IT Director Jeff Wilson was sent to the State Emergency Operations Center as part of an IT Strike Team programming radios for those in the field, coordinating dispatchers and setting up Starlink satellite dishes in areas without cell service. Four firefighters were sent to Mitchell County, and 12 police officers will head out Friday morning.

▪ N.C. State University : Nine staff members sent to UNC Asheville.

▪ UNC System Office : An unspecified number of IT experts were sent to UNC Asheville to restore internet service.

UNC Health

▪ Over 1,000 UNC Health employees from hospitals and clinics in Eastern North Carolina signed up to help their peers in Western North Carolina, at UNC Health Appalachian, UNC Health Pardee, UNC Health Blue Ridge and UNC Health Caldwell.

▪ Hundreds of medical workers are already there and more will join them. “Their goal is to relieve some of the strain at those hospitals, and let employees who need to deal with their own storm-related issues at home get a break,” UNC Health spokesman Alan Wolf said..

▪ The group includes physicians, nurses and respiratory therapists . Another group of nurses drove up with an emergency department nurse from UNC Health Rex to help in the Blue Ridge hospital emergency department in Morganton.

▪ IT experts were sent Friday to help restore power, phones and Internet at health facilities.

▪ UNC Health is collecting supplies for the hospitals and surrounding communities, including water and nonperishable food.

Orange County

Crews from across Orange County left Monday with cots, ready-to-eat meals and water, said Sarah Pickhardt, Division Chief of Emergency Management for Orange County Emergency Services.

Cash and supplies are needed, Pickhardt said, but people should donate through agencies already working in those communities, to avoid draining the limited resources available there.

It took Carrboro’s fire crew seven hours to get to Transylvania County — normally a four-hour drive — because of closed roads and other people crowding the highway west, she said.

“I know the Orange County community is really, really gracious and giving, and there are a lot of supply drives going on, but right now, they’re still very much in the response and trying to find people,” she said. We really need to keep roads clear for critical commodities and first responders.”

▪ Orange County sent two emergency managers and 11 EMS personnel to Buncombe County this week, joining four Orange Rural Fire Department firefighters sent Sept. 28 with a brush fire truck that can cover narrow roads, rough terrain and tight spaces.

▪ The Orange County Sheriff’s Office sent eight deputies to Haywood County, west of Buncombe County.

▪ Emergency Services Director Kirby Saunders , his team and the Sheriff’s Office deputies are filling in so “completely exhausted” local folks can rest, Pickhardt said. EMS crews are helping out at the shelters, and firefighters are clearing roads with chainsaws and also covering fire department shifts.

▪ The key mission for Orange County deputies is to boost public safety, Blackwood said. Local officials have already reported a murder and a “vicious assault” at the gas pumps in town, he said.

“I expected bad, but I didn’t realize it was going to be as bad as it was. It was just heartbreaking, and you’re coming back trying to think about and analyze and try to make some sense of it all, but you’re just kind of lost,” he said.

Chapel Hill

▪ Five Chapel Hill police officers went to Buncombe County on Monday to help the Asheville Police Department with traffic control and emergency calls. When they return home later this week, a fresh team could be dispatched.

▪ Chapel Hill Police Department’s Crisis Unit and an emergency management staff member are supporting first responders and staff at the state Emergency Operations Center. Another emergency management employee was sent to shelters in Asheville and Fletcher.

▪ Chapel Hill Fire Department dispatched three firefighters to Haywood County, along with members of the N.C. Task Force 8 Regional Urban Search and Rescue Team , which includes firefighters from Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh. The rescue team moved out Sept. 26 to provide swift water rescue and help with structural rescues.

Carrboro

▪ Four Carrboro firefighters and a fire engine headed out to Transylvania County, a remote area in the state’s far west.

Hillsborough

▪ Five public works and utilities equipment operators , a fleet mechanic with a truck and tools, a safety officer, two dump trucks and a backhoe, a skid steer and two pickup trucks, plus a chainsaw and other tools to help clear roads, are being prepped.

▪ Town Manager Eric Peterson is meeting virtually twice a week with other N.C. town managers experienced in managing disasters to assist colleagues in affected areas. At least one town communications employee could also go.

Chatham County

▪ Five deputies and a captain from the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office left Monday for Yancey County. The team took generators, bottled water and ready-to-eat meals with them.

▪ Chatham County Emergency Management sent two staff members to help re-establish internet connectivity in emergency operations centers, and the Chatham County Department of Social Services is also helping where needed, a spokesman said.

▪ North Chatham Fire Department sent firefighters with an engine truck.

“It’s a statewide effort,” Emergency Management Director Steve Newton said. “Every county that’s not impacted is waiting to send equipment and personnel over. We’ll have more personnel going west for the next several weeks.”