Five members of the Kermit Volunteer Fire Department in Mingo County are helping first responders in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee who are overwhelmed after catastrophic flooding.
“It’s not like a flood, it’s like a hurricane hit here. Everything has disappeared. The only word to describe it is “terrible,” said Kermit VFD member Billy Davis.
Video of flood damage in Asheville, NC and video of Kermit’s VFD members in West Virginia searching for victims car by car pic.twitter.com/FQ8NyKaH3f
This week, Davis and four team members traveled from Mingo County to Asheville, North Carolina. Before receiving their first mission, they dropped off a trailer containing humanitarian aid. Their disturbing mission is to find bodies in cars along the Asheville waterfront.
“When the floodwaters came, a lot of people were in their cars and we started checking the cars to see if anyone was in them. When we cleaned them up, we put a giant X on them,” Davis told MetroNews. in a telephone interview. “Unfortunately, we have found a 30-year-old woman deceased.”
Hundreds of people are missing and unaccounted for in western North Carolina. Davis said the situation is dire and more bodies may be found. However, he added that many people may be fine but unable to communicate with loved ones due to power outages.
On Wednesday evening, Kermit’s team went to Marshall, North Carolina, but there was no news. The city was razed to the ground, but the inhabitants remained unharmed.
“There’s nothing left of Marshall, North Carolina. It destroyed 14 businesses, including city hall and the police department. Fortunately, everyone managed to escape before the water entered the city. Every floor of Marshall is underwater,” he explained.
Most of those unable to leave the city gathered at a nearby church, which is surrounded by water but is the only remaining building in the small community outside Asheville.
“If anyone can’t contact Marshall’s family, everyone will survive. My phone blew up last night as people panicked trying to find the family there. They have no power or control over anyone, but everyone in Marshall survived,” he added.
The team specializes in rapids rescue, search and rescue and other skills that are currently in high demand in the area. They crossed the border into Irving, Tennessee, where 60 staff and patients had to be rescued by helicopter from the roof of a local hospital last Friday at the height of the flooding. Davis said the scenes of attempts to contact Ervin were shocking.
“If someone donated like that, you wouldn’t be able to drive on Interstate 26 in Irvine. Even on the 26th it was destroyed,” he said.
The group had to drive around the area. They were looking for a place to spend the night. Hotels for hundreds of miles around were fully booked. Most of it is occupied by victims who have lost everything, the rest is used by rescuers. Davis and the group from Kermit spent the night in a friend’s camper near Douglas Lake near Dandridge, Tennessee. When they spoke to MetroNews, they were traveling to Newport, Tennessee, east of Gatlinburg.
“We do a lot of searches here to try to help firefighters put in more numbers to determine if someone is truly missing or carried away. It is difficult for people to get out here and communicate in a place where there is no electricity. no cell phones, no internet,” Davis said.
Contact us | Privacy Policy | Work | Affiliates Intranet will not sell my personal information © 2024 West Virginia MetroNews Network.
Post time: Oct-08-2024