“It’s hard to describe to people that have never experienced it,” Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) Captain Thomas Henzgen said of what he saw in Asheville, North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
“Words don’t do justice to what you see and experience. It’s far worse than what’s on the news.”
Of Captain Henzgen’s 17 mutual aid deployments over the past 24 years, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he cited Helene as one of the most destructive hurricanes he has ever seen.
Hurricanes typically impact coastal cities and regions, which was the initial expectation for Helene. But instead of losing steam when it made landfall like most tropical storms, Helene kept rolling into the mountainous western region of North Carolina.
Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida on the heels of Helene, and there was concern that Milton would cause similar damage. To prepare, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) activated the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System to request nationwide mutual aid.
California Task Force 1 (CA-TF1), comprised of LAFD members, is one of 28 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Task Forces in the United States. Captain Henzgen and his 18-member swift water rescue team departed Los Angeles on Friday, October 4, 2024, to support search and recovery efforts in Asheville.
After a 52-hour drive across the country with their swift water rescue boats, gear, and equipment in tow, Captain Henzgen and his crew landed in North Carolina ready to work.
When they arrived, Asheville’s infrastructure was in shambles. Residents were without power, water, gas, or phone communications. In some areas, the water height had reached 35-40 feet. According to Captain Henzgen, sequoia-sized trees had been pulled out of the ground and tossed around like straws. He recalled recovering a woman who had been swept four miles away from where she had been, and individuals on the second story of a motel that had been flushed right out of their rooms.
He emphasized that while it is impossible not to be affected by what they saw, he and his crew focused their energy on making the situation better than how they found it. The team immediately aligned with local authorities and began water and land search and recovery operations.
“Even though it’s a sad situation,” Captain Henzgen said of recovering individuals who lost their lives in the storm, “it helps give the family some closure.”
The list of missing people that the crew received upon arrival was in the hundreds. When they left, they had pared that list down to nearly zero.
Alongside the search and recovery component, the team provided humanitarian aid to the surviving citizens of Asheville. Because communications were down, select members performed welfare checks every day to make sure that citizens who had not been heard from were alive and well.
From clearing driveways blocked by downed trees to changing flat tires for the elderly and handing out their own water and ready-to-eat meals, the CA-TF1 team delivered critical support for those who had lost everything.
“We helped a lot of people, and we were grateful to have that opportunity to go and help these communities,” Captain Henzgen reflected. Part of the team’s humanitarian work looked like distributing food and resources, listening to residents’ stories, and holding space for them to share their experiences.
Captain Henzgen was particularly moved by how the community had come together to support each other, even beyond the mutual aid support the CA-TF1 team was providing. Neighbors helped gather food and provisions for other neighbors, sorting and distributing necessities at the local fire station. “Citizens were just doing whatever they could to help each other out,” he recalled.
After two long weeks, Captain Henzgen and his team were called to Florida to join the LAFD members who had been deployed to Hurricane Milton. They staged in Georgia, but there were already enough resources and their team was sent back to Los Angeles.
Captain Henzgen was proud of his team and grateful for what they were able to accomplish while there. “All of us coming together from different agencies for one common goal, to help people in need, that’s the best part of this job,” Captain Henzgen emphasized.
“In our busy lives when we’re not faced with disaster, we lose sight of how important it is to just help each other out. That’s really what it’s all about.”
