Nearly a week after Hurricane Helene, Henderson County continues to deal with the impact.
“This has been just a horrible thing that we’ve been through all around Western North Carolina, and Henderson County took a direct hit,” spokesperson Mike Morgan said.
He said that they still have active rescues happening in certain parts of the county but thankfully, the number of those calls has decreased.
Their latest hiccup occurred on Tuesday when a cellphone tower went down.
“[It's] unconfirmed exactly what happened with that tower, but basically, we kind of lost what little bit of cell service we had in the county,” he said.
Morgan said all the cell phone providers, as well as Duke Energy, have been working around the clock to try and restore everything. That, however, will take a while and he knows that this is frustrating for people.
“It’s like a 1990s storm – meaning no cellphones, you know, no internet,” he said.
In the meantime, resource hubs are opening at 9 a.m. every day for water distribution and other supplies.
Those locations are the following:
- Etowah ElementarySchool
- Rugby Middle School
- East Henderson HighSchool
- North Henderson High School
- Mills River Town Hall
- Fletcher Town Hall
You drive through, we'll give you water, give you some supplies, enough to have for one day,” he said.
We caught up with a few people at the Mills River Town Hall to collect water and supplies on Wednesday, Oct. 2.
Jimmy Houlihan said that he knew it was going to be bad, but no one could have imagined just how bad.
“There is no power and there’s no water at the house, so everything around here is just very bad,” he said.
He said that they are relying on board games to keep busy and are cleaning up debris as much as they can.
This is horrible, this is epic – Just, everything changed,” he said.
Another resident, Sosimo Banaras, was emotional as he picked up supplies.
“We’re lucky, all we lost was power and a tree fell on our house,” he said.
In over 20 years here, he said that he has never experienced anything this bad.
Morgan has asked people to drop off donations at 118 McAbee Court,Flat Rock, N.C. 28731.
The county is in need of bottled water, nonperishable foods, and baby items like diapers.
He added that their entire county staff is working on clearing debris, working at the shelters and doing wellness checks.
“We’ve enlisted our folks to go out and check on these people if they can get to them,” he said.
They have also printed off flyers that first responders will be taking out into the community to try and get to people they have not reached who do not know what resources are available. The flier includes information for those sheltering in place: it informs people that recovery efforts will take time, roads may be blocked and outages will continue.
There is also important contact information and QR codes including the latest information on where resources are, as well as donation and volunteer opportunities.
The Henderson County Emergency Operations Center is open 24 hours a day during this emergency.
For routine non-medical requests, resource hub information and other general information, contact the county's call center at 828-771-6670 or email
STORY & PHOTO COURTESY OF ABC 13 WLOShttps://wlos.com/news/local/gallery/henderson-county-north-carolina-mobilizes-community-support-amid-ongoing-hurricane-helene-recovery-efforts-duke-energy-internet-supplies-water-distribution?photo=2
