Patients and their caregivers were rescued Friday from a Tennessee hospital's roof, where they took shelter after flooding caused by Hurricane Helene drove them from the building's interior and conditions made rescue efforts difficult. The dramatic scene at Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, near the North Carolina border, was one of several that played out across the southern US as flooding caused by Helene's storm surge and rain sent thousands of police officers, firefighters, National Guard members, and others on rescue missions. Hundreds were saved, the AP reports, but at least 40 died.
The hospital tried to evacuate 11 patients and 43 others in the morning after the Nolichucky River overflowed its banks and flooded the complex, but the water was too treacherous for boats sent by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. The decision was made to direct more than 50 people to the roof. Another seven had been temporarily stuck in rescue boats. After other helicopters failed to reach the hospital because of the storm's winds, a Virginia State Police helicopter was able to land on the roof. Three National Guard helicopters with hoist capabilities were sent, officials said.
"We've had a constant stream of helicopters picking them up and dropping them off into the city at safe places," Michael Baker, Erwin alderman, told CNN. Ballad Health, which runs the hospital, later posted that all of the staff and patients had been rescued. Patients were transferred to another facility, and no one remained at the hospital. "The water there simply came up faster with more debris than was safe to operate in the rafts to ferry from a dry point back to the hospital," said Patrick Sheehan, Tennessee's emergency operations director. (More Hurricane Helene stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
