A five member team from the Kermit Volunteer Fire Department in Mingo County is helping overwhelmed first responders in western North Carolina and East Tennessee in the wake of catastrophic floods.
“This don’t look like a flood, this looks like the hurricane literally hit here. Everything is gone. The only way you can describe it in one word is ‘horrific.’” said Kermit VFD member Billy Davis.
Davis and four members of this team travelled from Mingo County to Asheville, North Carolina this week. They dropped off a trailer load of relief supplies before getting their first assignment. They had the unsettling task of searching for bodies in cars along the Asheville riverfront.
“A lot of people were in cars when the water came up and we started checking cars to see if anybody was in them. We put a giant ‘X’ on them when we cleared them,” Davis explained in a phone conversation with MetroNews. “We did unfortunately find a 30 year old woman who was deceased.”
There are hundreds of people in western North Carolina who are missing and unaccounted for. Davis said it is a terrible situation and it’s likely more bodies will be found. However, he added many are probably okay and just can’t communicate with loved ones due to the loss of power.
Later on Wednesday the Kermit team worked their way into Marshall, North Carolina where nobody had been heard from. The town was wiped out–but the residents were okay.
“There is nothing left of Marshall, North Carolina. It destroyed 14 businesses including City Hall and the Police Station. The good thing is everybody got out before the water got into town. Every first floor in Marshall was underwater,” he explained.
Most of those who couldn’t leave town gathered at a nearby church–which was surrounded by water, but is the only structure left standing in the small community outside of Asheville.
“If anybody couldn’t get hold of a family member in Marshall, everybody survived. My phone blew up last night with people panicking and trying to find out about family members there. The just don’t have any power and can’t get hold of anybody, but everybody in Marshall survived,” he added.
The team specializes in swiftwater rescue, search and rescue, and other skills which are in high demand in the region at the moment. They moved across the border to Erwin, Tennessee where 60 employees and patients had to be rescued by helicopter from the roof of a local hospital last Friday during the height of the flood. The scene just trying to reach Erwin, according to Davis, was mind blowing.
“If anybody is bringing donations down this way, you can’t go through Interstate 26 at Erwin. It is wiped out, even on 26,” he said.
The team had to maneuver around backroads to make their way through the region. They were in search of a place to spend the night. Hotels for hundreds of miles are booked solid. Most are occupied by victims who have lost everything and the rest are being used by relief workers. Davis and the team from Kermit bunked in the camper of a friend near Douglas Lake outside of Dandridge, Tennessee. When they spoke to MetroNews they were headed to Newport, Tennessee which is located east of Gatlinburg.
“We did a lot of searches down here trying to help fire departments come up with some more numbers if people are actually missing or if they were swept away. Where there’s no power, no cell phones, and no internet it’s hard for people to communicate out of here,” said Davis.