US state of North Carolina — We are seeing search and rescue work in Western Carolina from the inside. The NCTA K-9 Search and Recovery Team was the ones we talked to. Volunteers came back from Western North Carolina this week.
The assistant director of the nonprofit lives in Winston-Salem. Her name is Annissia Justice. This is the worst damage the team has ever seen, she told us.
“Total chaos has been wreaked upon,” Justice remembered. “We went to Asheville, McDowell County and Madison County.”
The government sent Justice and her dog Dahlia to Asheville. These two people are on a team with three other people and four dogs. The job was to find people who were stuck in Hurricane Helene’s damaging path and could not get out. She said it took 10 days to find 20 people who had died in the storm.
“Work-wise, Asheville was the worst place we saw.” There were semis all over the place. “There was a house on top of every bridge that was still standing,” she said. “It was terrible. People who were still there were driving around and getting water from puddles to boil or flush their toilets.
Justice said she saw downed and muddy buildings that were up to three stories high. As soon as the team got back, she took her dog Dahlia to the vet just to be safe.
“The reason we put them through that is to make sure they’re happy. “The most important thing is safety,” she said.