Unicoi County Hospital flooding: Dozens of people were rescued from the roof of the Tennessee hospital during flooding in Helene

CNN
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More than 50 people were rescued after rising flooding from Hurricane Helene left them stranded on the roof of a Tennessee hospital Friday – some of them for hours, according to a city official.

The dozens of people trapped at Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tennessee, were all brought to safety Friday evening, Erwin City Councilman Michael Baker told CNN.

“We had a constant stream of helicopters picking them up and dropping them off at safe locations around the city,” Baker said earlier Friday. “There’s a helicopter on the roof of the hospital and we have another one hovering nearby to start the carousel to get everyone out, but it’s a team effort.”

Ballad Health, which manages Unicoi, was informed around 9:30 a.m. local time on Friday that the hospital needed to be evacuated, the health organization said in a post.

Erwin is located about 100 miles east of Knoxville in the southern Appalachians, near Tennessee’s border with North Carolina.

A total of 54 people were taken to the roof and seven others were placed in lifeboats, Ballad Health said in a statement earlier Friday. According to the hospital system, the count included 11 patients.

Unicoi County Hospital was “inundated by extremely dangerous and fast-moving water,” the statement on to evacuate safely.

Ballad Health called on the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard to get people to safety “A dangerous rescue operation.”

“The water was rising so fast that I literally looked at the owner and said, ‘We have to get out of here,'” Baker said.

According to its website, Unicoi County Hospital is a 10-bed nonprofit hospital.

At least 45 people died in five states in the storm, which caused flash flooding in the Southeast after hitting Florida as a Category 4 hurricane. The storm, which has now become a tropical depression, has left millions of customers without power, destroyed homes and caused road closures.

Angel Mitchell was trapped among dozens on the roof for four hours on Friday while her 83-year-old mother, who was visiting her, sat in a lifeboat nearby, she told CNN. Mitchell says they were quickly evacuated from a hospital room as water entered the building.

Mitchell said the power was out and hospital staff began directing patients and visitors to the roof for safety and grabbing whatever essential supplies they could find.

Her mother, who was suffering from pneumonia, was taken to a lifeboat. Meanwhile, according to Mitchell, she was sent outside where she waded in chest-deep water around the side of the building to climb a ladder to the roof, sometimes having to hold on to the building to avoid being swept away.

“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through,” Mitchell told CNN through tears.

While Mitchell was on the roof, she saw her mother – along with her oxygen tank – in one of the lifeboats. “That’s what tore me up the most – looking down and seeing her,” Mitchell said. She could only communicate with her mother by shouting loudly down at her.

As they waited for rescue, floodwaters rushed past and Mitchell saw what she thought were pieces of displaced homes and barns floating past them, she said. A video from the scene shows floodwaters surrounding and almost covering vehicles, including at least one ambulance.

“We all tried to stay calm, but it was extremely difficult,” Mitchell said.

A group of patients, nurses and doctors huddled together and prayed as they waited to be rescued. Mitchell says when emergency responders arrived, the water was about 10 feet below the roof line.

The helicopters transported the stranded people to a hospital 20 miles north of Unicoi County Hospital.

As of Friday afternoon, about 1.1 million people were affected by at least 14 different flash flood emergencies. This is the highest flash flood warning issued by the National Weather Service and is reserved for catastrophic flooding that poses a serious threat to human life.