Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida last week and then moved into Georgia and North Carolina, has devastated the South, prompting ongoing search and rescue operations.
The death toll has now topped 180, and hundreds of people remain missing following one of the worst storms in American history.
Hurricane Helene caused heavy flash flooding, landslides, and powerful winds. At least one dam in North Carolina broke, resulting in devastating floods that completely destroyed many towns.
Many Michiganders, including the 19-person Michigan Task Force 1 team that Michigan State Police Emergency Management deployed on September 26, have traveled down south to assist with relief efforts.
Chris Martin, the leader of Michigan Task Force 1, told WWJ Newsradio 950’s Taylor Dietz that he has been on many rescue operations throughout the country, and what he has witnessed in North Carolina is “by far some of the worst devastation I’ve seen on any of the responses I’ve been to.”
Martin reported that they spent the first day of their nine-day trip traveling, and then spent two days conducting rescues in Burke County, one of the most severely affected areas.
“We were in rescue mode, helping first responders take people out of cars that were trapped in water, houses that were overcome by water and even rescuers that got caught up doing the things they were doing,” Martin told reporters.
After leaving Burke County, the team traveled to the location around Chimney Rock and Lake Lure, where the dam had failed.
“The devastation was just incomprehensible—what it did to that town,” he told me. For a couple of days, we diligently worked to remove people from areas where bridges had collapsed, where they were across rivers, or where trees had fallen to such an extent that they were unable to walk out of their subdivision.
Martin expressed that he wished he had vacationed in the small community of Chimney Rock, a well-known Appalachian attraction, before the disaster.
“According to Google Maps, it was a wonderful town.” Now, the town will never return to its former glory. Hopefully, the people in the area will recover somewhat, but we can never replicate the way things were. “It was such a beautiful town, and now it’s completely devastated,” he remarked.
The crew also conducted primary searches and damage assessments in that area before heading to McDowell County on Wednesday, where they would collaborate with the Rocky Mount team and K-9 teams to search along river banks and structures damaged by the flood.
Wednesday marks the final day of search and rescue operations before the team returns to Michigan on Friday.
