A team of 10 Asheville firefighters returned home Thursday after spending five days in Eastern Kentucky assisting with recovery and rescue efforts after flooding killed eight people in the state.
The local firefighters are part of a swift water rescue team that only months ago was rescuing countless people in Western North Carolina.
Battalion Chief Adam Hoffman, who led the group, said that Hurricane Helene was still fresh in his mind.
“ The storm taught us a whole lot in regards to responses, community relations, just better ways that we can help out and better ways we can utilize our resources to be able to help,“ he said.
Hoffman said that his crew was deployed to Middlesboro, then moved north to Hazard, where, “ we were able to take our rescue boats into this community. We were able to evacuate everyone that wanted to come out.”
They also brought water, food and other supplies to residents who had been temporarily cut off due to flooding.
“It was very nice to be able to pay it forward and to go back up there to help them out as well in this time of need,” he said.
Asheville Fire Chief Michael Cayse told BPR that the crew was helping some of the same departments that had supported them during Hurricane Helene.
“Many of the same communities that we just returned from helping, sent members of their community from the state of Kentucky here into Asheville to assist us,” he said. “So it was really good to pay those communities back for the help they gave us.”
The Asheville crew responded to a request from Kentucky officials for swift water rescue team assistance that was sent to the North Carolina Emergency Management Agency.
