A swiftwater rescue team from Vermont is now supporting public safety efforts east of Asheville, North Carolina, after being deployed last week to the Tampa, Florida, area for rescues in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, state officials said on Wednesday. They are assisting local rescue teams there that themselves deployed to Vermont after the state’s own disastrous storms this year and last.
Hurricane Helene hit the northern Gulf coast of Florida late last week before traveling inland through Georgia and across the eastern edge of the Carolinas, bringing torrential rain and flash flooding to the mountainous region.
Gov. Phil Scott used part of his weekly press conference on Wednesday to draw attention to the suffering caused by the disaster and to the Vermonters now working there to help.
“Last year and again this year when we saw flood waters rising and asked other states to come to Vermont and help out, many did so without hesitation,” Scott said. So when Vermont’s help was requested “we didn’t hesitate,” he said.
The state sent a 14-member swiftwater team, four boats and five support vehicles to Florida last Tuesday ahead of the hurricane, Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison said.
Working in the Tampa area on Friday, the team responded to 911 calls, searched roughly 300 homes and evacuated approximately 20 people along with dozens of animals, Morrison said at the Wednesday press conference. They spent Saturday searching for missing people along the coast of Treasure Island.
By Sunday, Vermont’s rescue teams were released from their duties in Florida and reassigned to North Carolina to aid the flood response efforts there. A smaller six-person team with additional support vehicles from Vermont joined them in Buncombe County, North Carolina, on Sunday evening.
There, the teams’ initial work focused on the Broad River area, east of Asheville.
“Roads are mostly wiped out and countless homes destroyed,” Morrison said, describing conditions there. “There’s no water, no gasoline, no landline or cell coverage and roads are barely passable with four-wheel drive vehicles.”
Morrison said due to the mountainous terrain, with elevations ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 feet, not all areas are accessible by four-wheel drive vehicles. As a result, the team has primarily been conducting operations by helicopter insertion, she said.
The conditions the team have encountered have been catastrophic, she added.
“The team leader, Mike Cannon, reported that the situation was hundreds of times worse than he had ever seen,” she said. “And he’s seen a lot.”
Morrisson said the teams are in good spirits and highly motivated.
“It’s not lost on us that the area our team is working is the home to one of the North Carolina swiftwater teams that responded to Vermont in 2023 and made many rescues,” Morrison said. A swiftwater rescue team from there assisted local firefighters with rescues in Cambridge, Vt., following the flooding in July 2023.
Tomorrow, the teams are scheduled to move to the Black Mountain area just north of their current location, Morrison said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont rescue teams are deployed in North Carolina responding to Hurricane Helene.