New Bern & Greenville group welcomed home after helping WNC
GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) — Some local hometown heroes are back after being deployed to help in western North Carolina. The team is made up of people from New Bern and Greenville who spent thirteen days in the west helping with rescue and recovery efforts.
"We were initially assigned to Richmond County, which is in Rockingham, North Carolina, and we spent the night there. We got up on the 27th and we were repositioned to western North Carolina." said Brad Johnston, Program Manager and Task Force Leader of Task Force Ten.
They worked from Polk County to Chimney Rock then McDowell County.
"Initially, there were lots of mudslides, trees down and everything. That's what we really encountered in Polk County. That was a new thing for our team, where we're very familiar with a lot of flood water in eastern North Carolina. But we weren't really familiar with mudslides." said Johnston.
"Some of us have been on this team a long time, and once we got there, none of us have seen just, I'd say, devastation like they had out in western North Carolina." said Stephen Jasset, Captain with New Bern Fire and Rescue.
They helped in any way they could.
"We assisted four individuals, we evacuated 11 individuals and we did four rescues. A lot of that we work with some other teams. So it could be a crossover between the teams on the numbers that we worked in. And then we also encountered 34 shelter in place where the people decided they didn't want to leave their structures." said Johnston.
There was a physical and emotional toll.
"It was a long, exhausting process to make sure that we searched every single home, accounted for every single person, and then tried to, you know, rest and recover ourselves. So we were able to get up in the next day and do it again. I mean, 13 days kind of a long time." said Jasset.
Most importantly, they found a way to give back.
"A lot of us been through a lot. We, you know, Florence at New Bern years ago. And for us, we had so many outside units come help us out. So for us to go to the western part of the state and help them out, it was kind of rewarding for the rescuers, too, to be able to give that back." added Jasset.
