Indiana Task Force 1 member: What happened in North Carolina is catastrophic
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — First responders from Indiana have spent the last 10 days helping victims of Hurricane Helene in Florida and North Carolina.
The storm dumped an estimated 35 inches of rain in parts of remote western North Carolina.
Task Force 1 Battalion Chief Jay Settergren said Thursday from Asheville, North Carolina, that the heavy rain touched off flash floods that obliterated homes and businesses. “To tell you there’s piles of mud, it’s unbelievable. They’re as big as a pickup truck. It looks like snow if you can equate it to that, a snowstorm in the Midwest.”
Task Force 1 brought along trained dogs to help search through damaged homes to see if anyone is still inside: “If we do get a scent, we have to work into the house. We used a lot of technical rescue skills. We have to cut into the homes. We have to breach to get into that area to confirm whether there are human remains are not.”
Many people living in the remote areas are several miles from the nearest town and are cut off from communication with the rest of the world. Access into some of these areas is blocked because the storm washed out roads.
“We’re doing the best we can to locate these folks and get the information back to the county EOCs (emergency operation centers) so they can let their loved ones know,” Settergen said.
Indiana Task Force 1 is made up of emergency responders from the public and private sectors. It’s responded to massive disasters in the past including the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack in New York, and a condominium collapse in South Florida.
Settergren says what happened in North Carolina is catastrophic. “I think it’s absolutely one of the more severe ones damage-wise. I would compare it to the Kentucky floods (in 2021) because it’s almost the exact same topography.”
Settergren says he’s unsure when Task Force 1 will return to Indiana.