BURNSVILLE, N.C. – An early morning meeting in the Burnsville Town Center for volunteers is solemn, but filled to overflowing.
The stress and trauma of the past week is written on everyone’s faces as they choose assignments: some to babysit or walk pets at the shelters. Nurses head to the field hospital. Others head to the nearby Altec facility to hand out critical supplies to a never-ending stream of cars.
A woman who stopped to chat with a WBTV reporting crew along the street later breaks into tears.
“I don’t know one family, one home that’s not been touched by this,” said Lynn Austin, Yancey’s county manager.
At the NuWray Hotel in the heart of Burnsville, owners and others who can feed hundreds every day. Whiteboards filling half its front porch, the hotel is a hub of sorts for those seeking resources or a way to put a name of a loved one on a list to be checked on.
That’s where WBTV joined Burnsville mayor Russell Fox, who spent much of the first 72 hours after the storm guiding search and rescue teams into the most remote areas of the county that he’s called home all his life.
“Last night’s the first night I’ve been home since 3 a.m.,” he said with a chuckle to a neighbor.
Nine people are confirmed dead in the county according to the latest state numbers on October 3. That number is expected to climb a bit, but Fox expects from his firsthand experiences on the ground that it will not be in the range that online rumors suggest.
“I want to ask for people to not speak on stuff that they don’t know is 100% accurate,” he cautioned.
Fox took a WBTV crew to Pensacola Road, one of the deadliest areas of the county. The road is dangerous, but he believes the public needs to see the massive scale of damage: it will cost tens of millions if not more, to fix.
The road is a wasteland. The skies in the area are filled the entire morning with military and other helicopters on rescue and aid missions. An emergency operations center down the road is filled with FEMA, Guard, search & rescue and other officials.
“We’re lucky: we didn’t lose anybody,” one resident along the road told WBTV. Robbie Jobe lost tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of farm equipment and his home sits across from a bridge that no longer exists.
Farther up the miles-long road where Fox said about 3,000 people live, others haven’t been so lucky. Several people died in landslides and flooding along this stretch.
Dozens who survived but were entirely cut off from the outside world have been evacuated by helicopter and taken to the Burnside Fire Department where a field hospital has been set up since Saturday.
Nurse Amanda Watts has been there since Saturday, sleeping there so that she can help patients who arrive in the night.
At least 60 have been treated here, she said, with about 10 people treated for head injuries after hitting their heads on rocks trying to escape the flood waters. Many of those had been escaping with a loved one who did not make it.
They’re most in need of antibiotics; access to medications has been a serious issue. Going forward, water cleanliness and water-related illnesses are her next big concern.
“We need power and we need water,” she said.
Water is Fox’s next focus, too. The town’s water intake was destroyed in the flooding, and he estimates two weeks at least before they’re able to replace it. Finding a working toilet in Burnsville – or cell service – is a near-impossible task.
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