News

Death toll climbs to 7, hundreds of structures damaged or destroyed

By Bill Moss, Published: October 8, 2024

The death toll in Henderson County from Hurricane Helene stands at seven, a preliminary look at property damage shows 600 structures damaged or destroyed and roads and bridges remain a long-term challenges, Henderson County commissioners heard during a storm update Monday night.

The fatality total from the tropical storm winds and flooding was reduced to seven after the medical examiner determined that two deaths were not storm related, Jimmy Brissie, the county’s emergency management director, told the board.

A preliminary look by emergency managers, building inspectors and tax office personnel identified just under 600 structures affected by Helene — 220 with minor damage, 306 major damage and 70 destroyed — “and we’re just getting started,” he said.

In an eight-hour period, the county received a thousand 911 calls; since Helene arrived there have been more than 4,000. At the storm’s peak, fewer than 100 of Duke Energy’s 69,281 customers had power — one-tenth of 1 percent.

Brissie said National Weather Service forecasters warned about the magnitude of Helene before it arrived.

“They knew what was coming and they were worried about it,” he said. Once the storm hit, “911 calls were coming in faster than they could be dispatched.”

When floodwaters isolated Hendersonville, emergency responders used boats to transport patients to Pardee, then considered setting up a field hospital on high ground. He put up a slide showing a collapsed rural road.

“This scenario that we see over and over we’ve never seen before in our lifetime,” he said. “But despite that our community is thriving with volunteers, thriving with people who want to help their friends and neighbors. These resource hubs have become a community center where folks are working together and celebrating the recovery.”

County Manager John Mitchell opened the meeting by reading an account by Kermit Edney of the Great Flood of 1916, which the flood of 2024 by all accounts has surpassed.

“This has been the largest natural disaster in the history of Henderson County by far,” Mitchell said.

The emergency operations staff has “worked nonstop since before the disaster begun,” he said. “I want to call out specifically our volunteer fire departments who have consistently been in the field for 12 days, the sheriff for maintaining order and peace.”

He recalled that during the real property revaluation year in 2023, faced with many capital and major rolling stock requests from the county’s 12 volunteer fire and rescue department, “we struggled with whether or not to leave their rates where they are.” Commissioners agreed with the chiefs, giving the VFDs a revenue boost that “allowed them to buy the equipment necessary to do what needs to be done” to respond to the storm. “The citizens paid for that. The good work that’s going on out there now is funded out of those tax dollars.”

Sheriff Lowell Griffin, too, praised the response not only of his deputies but of all first responders, aid givers and volunteers who had stepped up.

“I stand before you really amazed,” he said, considering the apocalyptic landscape at sunup after the Helene hit. “Twelve days into this event, that we are where we’re at, I think is absolutely amazing. I actually have a little survivor’s guilt because I got power back today. Everybody in this room deserves a pat on the back because everybody has had a hand in it.”

Pardee President Jay Kirby noted that the county-owned hospital was spared bad damage.

“We’re sitting on a hill — it didn’t flood,” he said. “It’s made of brick — didn’t blow over. Never lost water. We had to learn to read doctors’ notes by hand again because we didn’t have power but we made it through. I have no dramatic stories to tell other than steady, calm, purposeful leadership. I have 40 team members that have lost homes.”

He praised UNC Health for sending doctors and other personnel, food, water and other supplies in the first days of the crisis before Pardee had power. And he praised the hospital staff, which is 80 percent female, for responding to the crisis, “leaving their husband, leaving their children, leaving their family and  bedding down in the hospital for four days to be there on the front lines.”

One more example, he said, of extraordinary sacrifice to serve the community.

“What you’re hearing tonight, thread by thread, is about the fabric of this community,” he said. “For 13 years I’ve been in the community and I’ve seen this fiber get strong and stronger.”

Schools Superintendent Mark Garrett said school campuses survived without major damage. Only Atkinson Elementary School, flooded by a stream that runs underneath it, was damaged; it will be closed for about two months. Plans now are to resume classes on Monday.

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