ASHEVILLE - Tropical Storm Helene exposed the fragility of the systems Western North Carolina depends on when disaster strikes. Two years later, emergency agencies, utilities, hospitals, nonprofits and exhausted responders are still managing the last recovery — while preparing for the next one.
"I like to say that it's a once-in-a-generation gut punch we took, and we've been fighting like it's once in a generation to get it back together," said Rod Honeycutt, Madison County's manager.
At the county level, Helene exposed a patchwork of strengths and vulnerabilities. Some emergency systems stayed online even as power, fiber and cellular networks failed, while others survived only because of backup systems, mutual-aid agreements and improvised workarounds.
Counties across the region have added communications redundancy, backup power, rescue equipment and staffing, but some still have lingering gaps.
Backups for the backups
Buncombe County’s 911 system never went down, but local radio tower capability became degraded while keeping generators running at remote sites became difficult.
“At one point, we had to air-drop in one of our radio engineers from a helicopter to refuel a generator so we could keep a tower site up,” Buncombe County Information Technology Division Manager Vance Bell told the Citizen Times Aug. 20.
The Voice Interoperability Plan for Emergency Responders, called VIPER, is North Carolina’s statewide radio network that allows public safety agencies to communicate across jurisdictions during routine operations and emergencies; it also had mountain-coverage problems, though the state system remained operational and provided supplemental coverage.
Since then, Buncombe has invested in a new 911 center and expanded backup capacity, including a larger alternate center, additional radio equipment, non-terrestrial internet service for tower backhaul and plans to use solar power as a third source of electricity at tower sites.
“We have additional backups for the backups for state 911 phone lines,” said interim 911 public safety communications director Alex McKnight.
Public safety staffing has also grown in Buncombe County. Emergency medical services staffing increased from 155 before Helene to about 166, while the county added emergency management positions. Emergency shelter capacity doubled from about 100 people before Helene to about 200 today. Its urban search and rescue team — one of only seven in the state — also remains fully rostered and active.
Haywood County manager Bryant Morehead told the Citizen Times Aug. 20 that power and telecommunications damage made it harder for some residents to reach 911, though its local responder radio system remained operational. Since Helene, the county has maintained a small cache of Starlink systems, multiple internet providers, AM radio transmitters, weather radios and other backup communications, while also installing a chain of flood warning sirens.
“Our goal is not to rely on any one technology,” Morehead told the Citizen Times. “It is to build layers of redundancy so that first responders can communicate with one another and the county can continue reaching the public even when portions of the communications network are disrupted.”
Authorized first-responder staffing, however, has not increased.
Yancey County also reported 911 and radio reliability problems early in the storm. County Manager Lynn Austin said the county has since made backup power and communications investments through grant funding, seen an increase in firefighters and developed a swift-water rescue team it did not have before the storm.
In Henderson County, VHF and VIPER radio systems remained functional during Helene but were strained by heavy demand.
“At times responders may have to attempt a transmission several times to obtain an available channel for their message,” Public Safety Director Jimmy Brissie said in a written response.
Since the storm, the county has expanded satellite communications, is upgrading generators and has increased emergency management staffing from four full-time employees to eight. Its pre-Helene shelter roster of 24 sites could accommodate 4,524 people, with two additional sites now being evaluated for another 300.
Rutherford County faced some of the most severe communications problems, including countywide cellular and internet outages and radio congestion.
“The County also lost the ability to directly answer 911 lines for approximately 12 hours,” Deputy County Manager Danny Searcy told the Citizen Times Aug. 20.
Calls automatically routed to Harnett County, which relayed information back through alternate methods. Rutherford has since added Starlink capability, FirstNet push-to-talk phones, dedicated VIPER channels and an additional peak-time emergency medical services truck, although emergency management staffing has not increased.
Madison County’s communications were severely degraded during the first 72 hours after Helene, with damaged 911 lines and a VIPER tower outage forcing the county to rely heavily on VHF radio, generators and backup support from Chatham County’s 911 center. State emergency management deployed additional satellite capability within about 48 hours.
Since then, Madison has repaired damaged communications towers and is adding another, while a planned $3 million Public Safety Complex will include redundant power and communications and house 911 and emergency management operations.
Emergency management staffing has grown from one full-time coordinator and four part-time employees before Helene to one full-time coordinator and nine part-time employees. The county is also expanding shelter capacity by about 200 beds and has added swift-water rescue equipment.
“I’m extremely proud of the county staff, our municipality leaders and public safety professionals for their dedication to not just rebuilding, but rebuilding better than we were before Helene,” Honeycutt said.
Power
Helene knocked out power to 2.7 million Duke Energy customers across the Carolinas and forced crews to conduct repairs at roughly 60,000 locations, including more than 350 affected substations. Duke deployed more than 23,000 field personnel from nearly 20 states and Canada, using 14,000 utility poles, more than 11,000 transformers, 31,000 crossarms and more than 9 million feet of wire.
Duke said its broader grid-hardening program has upgraded or replaced more than 120,000 distribution poles since 2022, converted about 12,000 wood transmission poles to steel and trimmed nearly 54,000 miles of power lines. As of Aug. 25, self-healing technology had prevented 1.4 million customer outages and 3.3 million hours of outage time in the Carolinas this year.
“It was a true story of resilience. And certainly a storm unlike any I have experienced in my 18 years of working storm responses with the company,” spokesperson Jeff Brooks told the Citizen Times Aug. 25.
Communications
Western North Carolina’s wireless landscape is dominated by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, the three major national carriers operating across the region. FCC data show all three maintain substantial coverage across rural markets in North Carolina. Nationally, they account for most wireless subscriptions.
Helene exposed a shared vulnerability when flooding destroyed power, roads and fiber connections linking cellular sites to broader networks. That, in turn, led to another flood — a flood of requests for wellness checks by first responders when a simple check-in call or text to meemaw and papaw the next cove over went undelivered, or unanswered.
An AT&T spokesperson told the Citizen Times Aug. 20 that “each disaster serves as a reminder of the constant need for innovation.” The company has since invested more than $75 million in its regional wireline network and added or upgraded more than 150 cell sites. From October 2024 through July 2026, AT&T also extended fiber to more than 30,000 homes and businesses in the region, while the company said its broader North Carolina wireless and wireline investment totaled more than $3.2 billion from 2021 through 2025 and included expanded 5G coverage, additional spectrum and regular disaster-readiness drills.
T-Mobile deployed more than 500 emergency crew members, engineers, technicians and other personnel across storm-damaged states after Helene after portable generators, satellite-connected cell sites and other temporary systems helped restore service.
“While T-Mobile had many of these technologies and tools in place during Helene, we’ve continued investing in infrastructure resilience and emergency response capabilities to help keep customers, communities and first responders connected during disasters,” a T-Mobile spokesperson told the Citizen Times Aug. 21.
The company said it has since expanded network hardening, backup power, redundant routes and satellite connectivity as well as expanded its emergency vehicle and drone fleet.
Verizon said some towers remained standing and initially operated on backup power, but outages were largely driven by damage to equipment that, before the storm, was buried underground.
“Helene was an unprecedented environmental event that destroyed vital infrastructure, washing away bridges, roads, commercial power and the fiber optic cables buried alongside them,” Leo Perreault, vice president of engineering and operations, told the Citizen Times Aug. 21. “In the two years since, Verizon has focused on rebuilding stronger, creating a more resilient and redundant network across Western North Carolina.”
That focus on resiliency includes a $9 million investment in regional network infrastructure, including completion of 46 major recovery and expansion projects and utilization of additional low-band 5G spectrum at 81 sites. Verizon is also adding redundant fiber routes, satellite backhaul and stronger backup power systems.
Health care
Greg Lowe, President of Mission Health, told the Citizen Times Aug. 25 that six regional HCA Healthcare hospitals remained open to treat patients during Helene — Mission Hospital in Asheville, Angel Medical Center in Franklin, Blue Ridge Regional Hospital in Spruce Pine, Highlands-Cashiers Hospital in Highlands, Mission Hospital McDowell in Marion and Transylvania Regional Hospital in Brevard.
Employees divided into rotating teams to sustain operations, with some sleeping at the hospitals or staying nearby even as their own homes and communities dealt with widespread destruction.
“The experience reinforced something we will never forget — preparedness is about infrastructure and resources, but it is ultimately about people,” Lowe said.
Hundreds of employees and physicians from across the country traveled to the region to provide relief, while the company brought in water trucks, mobile kitchens, showers, laundry facilities and other infrastructure. Employees also received groceries, fuel and financial assistance.
Mission Hospital went 54 days without municipal water, while the widespread loss of communications exposed another vulnerability. Mission has since added redundant internal and external systems, including satellite phones, public-safety radios and BlueNet, a satellite-based network named for Blue Ridge Regional Hospital, which Lowe said was perhaps the hardest hit. Mission also created a systemwide emergency management director position and expanded emergency drills, training and preparedness education.
VOADs
For some volunteer organizations active in disasters, Helene also changed the way they think about the next disaster, treating it as a question of when — not if — they will be called upon again. Alongside larger, better-known VOADs such as Samaritan’s Purse and Baptists on Mission, some organizations pivoted into disaster recovery after Helene, while others were created because of the storm itself.
No Child Hungry, founded in 2012, works to fight food insecurity by producing nutrient-rich, shelf-stable meals that can be stored for three years and prepared with boiling water. Although disaster response was not its original mission, the organization has increasingly filled that role, including after Helene, when it partnered with Queen City Homestore and other groups to move hundreds of thousands of meals into Western North Carolina.
In June, more than 600 volunteers packed 140,522 meals in Newland for Avery County families still hurting from the storm.
“We never set out to become a disaster response organization,” Mike Whitaker, chief operating officer, told the Citizen Times June 25. “But what we learned very quickly is that when disaster hits, kids are disproportionately affected.”
Grounded Boots Relief grew directly out of Helene. Founder John Badger first organized Hendersonville Disaster Relief through Facebook, drawing about 7,000 followers in its first week and roughly 200 volunteers before establishing Grounded Boots Relief as a nonprofit in December 2024.
The Hendersonville-based organization specializes in reaching places conventional disaster resources cannot, using off-road vehicles, communications equipment, drones, physical maps and trained volunteers to move personnel and supplies, restore access and gather information from the field. Badger said the lessons of Helene have shaped how the group prepares for the next disaster.
“The initial intent was to be able to respond to future disasters — the mindset is, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the second-best time is today,” Badger told the Citizen Times July 6. “We’ve really been focusing on making sure that we’re prepared for whatever comes our way.”
Cory Vaillancourt is the Helene Recovery/Investigations Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Find him on X at @The_CoryV or on Signal, via email at cvaillancourt@citizentimes.com or at 912-508-5640.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Helene exposed weaknesses and rewired WNC’s disaster response playbook
