HURRICANE HELENE DISASTER RESPONSE
City of Hendersonville, NC

About the Storm
Hurricane Helene arrived in the mountains of Western North Carolina as a tropical storm on Friday, September 27th, saturating the area from rain that swept the area in the days before. Record-setting rainfall battered the cities, towns, and small rural mountain communities in what scientists are now calling a 1000-year storm event.
Hurricane Helene's track and wind swath through the Carolinas. Data sources: NOAA National Hurricane Center, ESRI, Henderson County
The City of Hendersonville stands at the convergence of several creeks and streams within the French Broad River Basin. While the City is no stranger to localized flooding, the days of rain before Helene reached the area exceeded previous records, breaching levels past the 500-year floodplain. Hendersonville received 21.96 inches of rainfall through 8am Saturday, the 3rd highest in the region. (The National Weather Service)
City of Hendersonville and the surrounding floodplain. Data sources: City of Hendersonville, Henderson County, NOAA, ESRI.
City-Wide Flooding
Each department played an important role in the safety, operations, and clean-up of the City before, during, and after the storm event. Continue scrolling to see how each department and the dedicated employees and volunteers came together for the well-being of the City.
Click on a photo to enlarge.

Surveillance cameras looking south

Mud Creek & South Grove Street

S Grove Street & E Caswell Street

Mud Creek crossing at 7th Ave E

Greenville Highway at Publix

Mills River Intake

French Broad River Intake

S Main Street & S King Street

Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (US-64)

City Operations

Wastewater Treatment Plant

S Grove Street & Chadwick Avenue

S Grove Street
Immediate City Response
City officials acted fast, issuing a State of Emergency and setting up an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in the newly-opened Fire Station 1 before the storm's arrival.
Consisting of employees of all departments, the EOC worked around-the-clock to coordinate response efforts, assess damages caused by flooding and high winds and work through solutions to get the City back up and running.
City Manager John Connet addressing the EOC in a daily briefing.
As a sign of strength and unity for the community, Hendersonville's City Council met on October 3rd in the old Council Chambers within the historic City Hall.
Hendersonville's City Council, department heads, and admin staff meeting with the public.
To aid in the response, outside organizations including Army Corp of Engineers, Army National Guard, Turner Murphy, McKim & Creed, Jackson Electrical, the Town of Matthews, the City of Shelby, and the City of Fayetteville, Charlotte Fire Department Task Force 3, and others came to assist.
Many community members stepped up to fill vital volunteer roles to assist, including gathering supplies, using GIS applications to help map out the widespread damage, and in the case of Donnie Ryan, the Recovery Alive Ambassador for Living Water Church, and his family, preparing the majority of meals during the emergency response.
The National Guard taking a break at Pop's Diner.
PUBLIC SERVICES DEPARTMENTS
The Public Services umbrella consists of the Water and Sewer, Public Works, Stormwater, and Engineering Departments. Each of these departments play a crucial role in providing City residents with their basic needs and services and quickly sprung into action.
Water and Sewer
The City of Hendersonville's Water and Sewer Department provides utilities to a population of roughly 80,000 water customers throughout Henderson County and 21,000 sewer customers. Hurricane Helene brought damages to the Water Treatment Plant (WTP), the Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), the new French Broad River Intake, the Mills River Intake, two Reservoirs in Pisgah National Forest, many pump stations, and not to mention damages to the miles of water and sewer pipes running throughout the service areas.
Water cresting well beyond the banks at the Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Decades of strong investments to water and sewer infrastructure proved beneficial during and after the storm.
With cell phone and internet communications disrupted, the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system ensured reliable monitoring at remote pump station and water storage sites.
AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) allowed utility staff quickly identify private side leaks, temporarily disconnect water service, and notify customer of issues.
Crews beginning work on repairs.
Emergency power generators had been installed at all critical treatment facilities and over 100 remote pump station and water storage tank sites. Essential water and wastewater functions were able to continue well before electrical power was restored.
Pressure sensors and monitoring equipment allowed crews to pinpoint leak areas to quickly isolate and address.
A main on Gilliam Road needing major repairs due to road washouts.
And most important, investing in knowledgeable and professional utility staff with the ability to respond to and remediate issues.
Crews worked around-the-clock to rebuild damaged infrastructure.
As a precautionary measure, the Water and Sewer Department issued a system-wide system pressure advisory for its water system meaning that customers should boil their tap water before using it for drinking purposes.
As leaks in the system were addressed, and the water pressure began to build back, staff used its notification system, RAVE, to inform their customers of any advisories.
This webmap was updated in real-time over the several days it took for system pressure advisories to be rescinded. Customers could search their address to know the status of the pressure zone their house was in. This map was viewed over 30,000 times in the days it was released.
As the critical damage to the water treatment facility and distribution system were repaired, utility staff began working to flush pipes and collect samples throughout the water distribution system.
Around 200 samples were collected in the Utility’s approximately 700 miles of distribution system piping to confirm the water was safe to drink.
Each sample was tested for turbidity and the absence of coliform bacteria at the City’s water laboratory located within its water treatment facility.
By October 3rd, 6 days after the day of the storm, 95% of Hendersonville’s utility customers had water service.
By October 12th, 100% of Hendersonville's water system had been sampled and confirmed safe to drink.
Due to the flooding, the Wastewater Treatment Plant's electrical infrastructure was completely down. The Army Corps of Engineers provided two large generators that were able to power and sustain utilities at the Plant.
All major wastewater treatment operations were restored on 10/7, 2 days earlier than expected due to the hard work of operations teams and contractors.
Wastewater effluent sampling began on 10/8.
Anticipated infrastructure improvements will include construction of a new influent screening facility, construction of new submersible influent pump station, and construction of new vortex grit removal systems that will provide greater resilience in the grit removal process.
Temporary piping was installed in order to get the plant online.
Public Works
The Public Works Department began right away with assessing damage to City facilities, including City Hall and the Operations Center, and inaccessible roadways due to downed trees and debris.
City Operations Center is over 600' from the banks of Mud Creek and not within the FEMA floodplain.
134 roads within the City limits were closed due to the hurricane event; however, by 10/14, all but one had been reopened by Public Works crews.
43 roads were closed with issues involving power lines. Thanks to collaboration with Duke Energy, all 43 roads were addressed and re-opened for travel.
Crews removing trees from City roads.
The department worked hard to address the trash pickup needs of citizens. Trash and brush trucks adapted to new schedules to begin hauling trash and debris out of accessible areas until their standard routes could resume.
Sanitation crews adapting their normal schedules around the circumstances.
In October (1st-18th), Public Works collected 260 tons of garbage, up almost 37% of the monthly average.
1,955 tons of brush were collected alongside garbage during this time.
Powerlines intertwined with downed trees added extra obstacles for cleanup.
Crews utilized mobile GIS applications to tag locations of areas in the city that still needed a response.
QuickCapture was used by crews to populate a dashboard to show metrics on cleanup needs.
The Oklawaha Greenway follows alongside Mud Creek and was hit hard with flooding and debris. Knowing that recreation along the Greenway would provide a sense of normalcy during this time for the public, crews began to tackle the cleanup efforts along the trail.
While cleared, the Oklawaha Greenway looks almost unrecognizable.
Also to boost morale of the public, community volunteers partnered with the Public Works Department to provide two weekends of free mini golf at the Laura E. Corn course.
Stormwater
As flood waters receded, the Stormwater Department prioritized working with County and State agencies to begin FEMA Damage Assessment Reports for buildings within the floodplain.
Stormwater Technician Dustin Moffitt collecting measurements for FEMA reports.
Before staff could safely access buildings, they worked with the Water & Sewer Department by looking for water and sewer line breaks and collecting drinking water samples.
They also assessed damages and cleared trees and debris out of wetlands within City limits.
Engineering
Acting as a support system for other departments, the Engineering Department assisted with the development and monitoring of community reporting for Water, Sewer, and Public Works incidents for increased tracking ability.
Leveraging ArcGIS Online, maps, reports, and dashboards were generated, allowing for the teams to identify and prioritize most major impacted zones and progressively address concerns throughout the recovery effort.
Drones were deployed to help with identifying sewer leaks in hard-to-reach areas.
Drone surveillance of post-flooding leaks.
The Engineering Department also coordinated with various contractors to implement repair efforts with the City's water system that would allow for the expansion of water pressure in order to inspect damage to water pipes.
Flood waters receding at the new French Broad River Intake.
PUBLIC SAFETY DEPARTMENTS
To ensure the safety of the public, Hendersonville's Fire and Police Departments proved how well-prepared they were to handle this disaster.
Fire Department
The Fire Department began planning ahead on September 25th, converting the training room in Fire Station 1 into the EOC and running checks on apparatus and equipment.
Around the clock staffing of the EOC began on the 26th, responding to calls and talking with residents about evacuating due to flooding already beginning to happen.
HFD with Elon FD.
As Helene swept through and in the immediate days of flooding that followed, the Fire Department responded to dozens of calls a day.
First responders were called out on 64 water rescues and set up a ferry line to Pardee Hospital for county EMS to transport patients.
They also transported residences in flooding areas to shelters, performed search and rescue operations of residential areas, and cleared trees out of roadways by inspection zones.
In the first week of the storm, the Fire Department responded to 405 calls.
HFD working to clear trees.
Police Department
The Hendersonville Police Department 911 call center received 556 calls within the first two days of the Hurricane Helene flooding incident along with 1,188 police calls for service during the first week of incident and recovery.
While PD business lines and internet/cellular communication were lost mid-day on September 27th, 911 calls were processed through an alternative route through the Statewide Call VIPER radio channel allowing agencies across the state to record and process our citizens 911 calls.
The Police department adjusted to have 3 police dispatchers during day-time operations hours and 2 at night during the early stages of the hurricane incident to respond to the increased call volume and coordinate critical information to our local officers and PD leadership.
HPD conducted over 196 public security checks to confirm the safety and welfare of our community members within the first week of hurricane recovery, as well as relayed 6 water rescue requests on September 27th to Henderson County officials to aid in water rescue efforts.
Lieutenant Capps conducting wellness checks.
HPD was able to gain internet access on Sept. 29, just 2-days after losing initial internet access. The following day, to increase public communication ability, the Verizon cell phone generally used to serve as the “command post”, was activated to provide an additional communication tool to receive calls from the public along with 2 more T-Mobile cell phones which were activated a few hours later.
Lieutenant Capps conducting wellness checks.
The Hendersonville community received great assistance from mutual aid officers from eastern regions of North Carolina, including: Rolesville PD, Zebulon PD, Town of Pine Knoll PD, China Grove PD, Graham PD, Greenville NC PD, and Wendell PD. Without assistance from our mutual aid departments, the levels of public security assurance and recovery efforts would not have been possible.
HPD Lieutenant Smith, Town of Pine Knoll Shores PD Chief Thompson, HPD Officer Tinoco, and China Grove PD
Administrative Departments
City operations would not have been able to run smoothly, both in storm response and returning to day-to-day duties, without the hard work from the Information Technology, Communications, Community Development, Legal, and Finance Departments.
Information Technology
Along with power and water, Helene also knocked out the cellular and internet in the region.
The IT manager secured a Cell-On-Wheels (COW) from T-Mobile within 24 hours and an AT&T COW shortly after.
Emergency cellular and internet hotspots were installed to ensure operations ran smoothly.
T-Mobile and Starlink systems being utilized at the EOC.
After establishing internet and cellular networks, the Police Department's NetMotion was brought back online, allowing coordination with in-field officers.
SCADA was reconnected to the Water Treatment Plant 2 days after the storm and a new fiber cable was installed at the Wastewater Treatment Plant on October 12th.
IT Manager Jay Heatherly in the EOC.
Communications Department
The Hendersonville Communications Department began public notifications on September 24. The communications team prioritized storm and flooding preparation messages that included how the public could prepare for power outages, road closures, and targeted alerts within the 100-year floodplain. As conditions progressed, communications also included the declared State of Emergency, travel warnings and updates, and available shelter resources.
During the peak 11-day response period, approximately 419,990 messages were sent via the RAVE messaging system utilizing email, voice calls and text messages to approximately 40,000 unique users. The notification system was also utilized to provide critical emergency and operational messaging to City employees including information on accessing food, water, fuel, laundry and other necessities.
Hendersonville's Communications Department and volunteers from Henderson and Gaston Counties working hard in the EOC to keep the public informed.
The Communications Department worked closely with local radio station WTZQ to stand up a mobile station from within the Hendersonville Fire Station 1 to broadcast real-time information to listeners.
Messaging adapted to meet the evolving needs of the community and public safety. Beyond distributing critical information, social media was utilized to address questions from the community and was monitored to manage rumors and amplify community resource sharing. The City of Hendersonville posted 158 social media updates across government, police and fire channels, and sent 10 alerts through the Hendersonville Police Department app.
WTZQ broadcasting out of Fire Station 1 with City Manager John Connet.
Community Development Department
During Hurricane Helene, the Community Development Department (CDD) guided both day-to-day logistics and long-term planning in the aftermath of the storm. The Planning Division’s responsibilities shifted daily, but their overall mission remained the same: secure the critical resources of lodging, food, and fuel for those keeping the City moving.
They coordinated shelter for 108 mutual aid responders who came to Hendersonville’s aid from eight local governments across the state through generous support from Waverly Inn and Mountain Inn.
Staff and volunteers stocking up supplies to bring back to the EOC.
The Community Development Department oversaw the preparation of over 600 meals a day for 13 days—a total of roughly 8,000 meals.
Every day, dedicated volunteers prepared and delivered 50 to 75 to-go meals to crews in the field and staff at the City’s water and wastewater plants.
The Community Development Department secured a reliable fuel source, managing 465 individual fuelings for seven City departments and six mutual aid agencies.
Unloading supplies at Fire Station 1.
As the waters receded and operations returned to a steady rhythm, the focus shifted to recovery. The Community Development staff—joined by mutual aid from Raleigh, Johnston County, and the Greensboro Fire Department—undertook the task of assessing damage to every single- and two-family home outside the floodplain. Together, they covered approximately 5,500 structures, completing all assessments in just four days.
A look inside the EOC. Planning Managers Tyler Morrow and Matt Manley with Planner Sam Hayes sitting at the right table.
Legal and Finance Departments
During the early stages of the incident, the customer service and billing teams focused on securing critical resources, obtaining and transporting supplies, as well as supporting Henderson County’s call center.
Once the City of Hendersonville established a municipal call center, from 10/2-10/11, the customer service and billing team along side of community volunteers, responded to nearly 2,260 calls from the public and outside agencies. The team provided guidance regarding resource availability and donation drop-off locations, community safety updates, as well as information about our public service operations.
The Accounting team partnered with the Human Resources team to ensure the accurate recording and completion of payroll documentation of 337 employee timecards on 9/30 alone, especially challenging during a period of no internet or cellular connection.
Mayor Barbara Volk taking calls during the emergency response.
The Accounting team played a pivotal role in ensuring the proper documentation and ongoing work of employee's ICS 204 and 214 forms responsible for providing FEMA the complete and accurate assessment of personnel operations and activities that occurred throughout the hurricane recovery.
The team designated Points of Contacts (POCs) and hosted one-on-one training sessions to provide thorough guidance regarding FEMA policies and expectations as this marked the City’s first natural disaster of this scale. Once internet connection was restored, the team also created an online FEMA documentation dashboard that was incredibly beneficial for transparency for city employees to review and monitor closely.
The team partnered with a FEMA consultant throughout the recovery process to gain further guidance around FEMA documentation guidelines. Along with great attention to detail reviewing documented FEMA reports, the accounting team has focused on the collection and review of P-card receipts and invoices related to Hurricane Helene which allow the team to keep a very accurate assessment of hurricane related spending and resource allocation.
Mayor Pro Tem Lyndsey Simpson volunteering in the call center.
Actions Moving Forward
The Water and Sewer Department will advance with the replacement of Tertiary Filter No. 2 to match Tertiary Filter No. 1 to improve operating efficiency and improve operating capacity of the filtration system. This will also include concrete repairs to the Tertiary Filter structure, repairing cracks and extending the useful life of the Tertiary Filter structure itself.
The Public Works Department continues to remove debris, trash, address issues with City-owned streets, work through the process of repairing City facilities, move forward with public special events, and will continue with normal operations.
The Stormwater Department will continue with damage assessment reports of buildings within City limits, helping the rebuilding process for homeowners and local business owners. They will continue to advocate for and install infrastructure to manage future storm events.
As the hurricane environment recovery proceeds, the Engineering Department plans to continue the development and expansion of the community's public trail systems such as expanding our public street bike lanes as well as further development of our Greenway system.
Information Technology will obtain a Starlink system for each facility, purchase radios for backup communication sources, purchase emergency cell repeaters to be installed in optimum locations, and will transition to an IP-based phone system for additional versatility during power outages.
Fire and Police will continue to preserve the safety and security of our community and leading disaster recovery efforts.
The Finance Department continues to process all FEMA related forms, documents, and receipts needed for reimbursement of storm-related expenses.
One Team, One Goal - Mountain Excellence!
This story and all photos are property of the City of Hendersonville.
November 2024