"A stench of disaster that I will not forget"

Weeks after returning from her home state of North Carolina, aiding communities impacted by Hurricane Helene, Petersburg nurse Laura Holder still feels a tightness in her chest — not only from processing the experience, but from the week of breathing toxic dust and mold at the scene.

Based out of West Yancey County Fire Department, an ad hoc hub for rescue operations in the region, she spent the week working alongside hundreds of emergency responders, volunteers, and good Samaritans from near and far, there to "show up and do what is necessary."

Yancey County, in the western part of North Carolina, continues to recover in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which hit the state in September with devastating impact.

Holder explained that, for many residents in the mountainous communities around the area, a hurricane wiping out their neighborhood was unthinkable.

"Nobody was prepared for that to be something that was going to happen."

Growing up in the state, she said "this isn't a place I've ever in my life, ever heard of a hurricane hitting. That doesn't happen in the mountains ... that's not a thing ... I saw it and it still doesn't make sense."

Water breached from high elevations; creeks below became massive walls of water.

Rivers rushed where roads once were; stray animals and "out of control" yellowjackets swarmed throughout the area, influencing caution and increasing the demand of allergy medications and Epipens.

Homes in the hillsides were swept away in flood waters and landslides; entire neighborhoods, completely destroyed.

"It's just unlike anything I've ever seen in my life, or would have thought I would see ever in my life."

A nurse for nearly two decades, Holder was compelled to return to her home state and help.

"Honestly, I felt like, if I have the means and the skills to do so, there's really no excuse for me to not do it. And I'm really glad that I did ... It's really life-changing for me, the whole experience."

Working with nurses from all over the region, doctors, EMTs, sheriffs, neighbors — Holder recalled that the sheer number of people who showed up was "more help than I would have ever imagined."

"The overwhelming response of locals and local adjacent people is incredible," she said. "A lot of the people that were helping, they lost so much, themselves."

It was a powerful force of competent locals volunteering without oversight. Be it driving ATVs through rough terrain, writing emergency prescriptions, treating infected wounds or cooking grits — hundreds of folks showed up to fill roles and serve however and wherever their skills could meet needs.

"The transportation of people and goods to the right places and people is an enormous task, and that task is going to people who are simply willing to do it all over the region."

Holder was sent all over the county, working in field hospitals and reaching out to people standing in decimated homes to get them help.

"A lot of it was just a logistical nightmare of how to get as many people in the right places and get the supplies in the hands of the people that needed them, in an environment where we had a whiteboard of missing people..."

She said it was extremely busy, a scene of warm bodies and boards and tons of donations, "A beehive of people ... and so much food ... crock pots of food for days ... and that's the Appalachian way: things go bad, and people make food ... I had the best grits I've had in 10 years, because I've been living in Alaska for so long."

Volunteers had to be self-sufficient, and Holder was told to bring her own gear, "because they have far more willing hands than prep for anything like this happening..."

In a disaster zone, "you're responsible for your own safety ... and you have no way of knowing what you're going to encounter."

Half of the nurses were armed, she recalled.

Stray animals were a common sight after the fences for farms collapsed.

A local elementary school served as an animal hospital and supply source; local churches and schools set up shelters for survivors.

Even though it was hot during the day, snow fell at night.

Many first responders camped out in tents near the fire department base. There were only a few porta potties, and no running water.

"It's just ... a really great testament to me of what people are capable of," said Holder. "I will be lifelong friends with some of these people."

Some of the volunteers she connected with at the base had been unable to return to their neighborhoods, or had even lost their own homes.

"There's just whole areas of land where the land mass itself is gone. So those roads are gone, those homes are gone — and the process of getting to those people that survived in those hills is the challenge."

Having experience as an ER nurse, working with EMS, and employed as the Home Health Manager at Petersburg Medical Center, Holder was comfortable prioritizing and entering homes during her outreach.

"A lot of the people in the region are extremely resilient. It's kind of similar to Alaska, in that way," Holder described of the folks staying in their homes, who responders searched to share crucial safety information and resource options with.

"A lot of those people are not willing to leave their homes, or they want to stay as close as possible ... and there are a lot of resources to allow that, but sometimes you just need one thing to make it safe..." be it a kerosene heater, walkie talkies, insulin and cold packs to keep it chilled, "things like that, that people just start to go without in a disaster situation, we were able to address."

She said the emergency responders would get assignments for the day that sent them into neighborhoods throughout the county to assess what people needed, treat injuries, and bring resources back to them.

The ground well is destroyed and there is a boiling water advisory in effect. However, without a power grid and no internet, people could not know the water was not drinkable — unless someone from outside could find and tell them.

"There are a lot of resources, but if you're in the hills and you don't have access to technology, and you don't have the internet, you have no phone — it takes somebody coming to find you," said Holder. "They don't have any way to know what kind of help is available because they're cut off from communication."

Traveling in small groups and getting on the back of an ATV with a person she just met, "like, sure, let's go," was typical for a day of outreach, hauling supplies out to holler communities in hard-hit areas.

Mud and sludge throughout the area was toxic, mixed with debris from trash, buildings, vehicles, power lines, animal corpses and septic systems — and the resulting dust continues to cause respiratory issues for those living or working in the area.

Holder said she still feels the toll on her body from inhaling all the dust.

"My lungs are still burning and I'm still coughing stuff up," she told the Pilot. "I think it will be impactful, generationally, what it is doing to these people's health ... I can hear it in my voice even now ... just having been breathing that in for one week, what that did to my lungs and my sinuses."

Though much of the infrastructure was "decaying rapidly," Holder watched the terrain change day-to-day as people worked to dig out and fix roads.

She described driving on a road, half of it gone, and a hole where it once was.

House numbers were spray painted on trees, "because there's no visual cue, other than a field of trash and trees and mud, that a house was there..."

"There's nothing there in some of these places."

She saw 30-foot debris piles of "trees and toilets and whatever was in the water" that had been swept downstream by the force of water.

"It's unbelievably apocalyptic looking in some of these places," she said.

A bus was found "smushed" into the side of a church around the bend of a crumbling road, near a shop in Pensacola.

"There is a stench of disaster that I will not forget," Holder recalled. "And that's a mix of trash, rubble, sludge, decay of God-knows-what ... and mold, that's a big one."

She recalled a house that had mold all the way up to its ceiling already because the whole basement had been full of flood water and mud.

Amidst a pile of debris, Holder's team found a single tiny, child-sized shoe.

Many people remain missing after Hurricane Helene hit; numerous bodies have not been recovered, and in some cases, were found washed away to a different county.

"Seeing that board of people still looking for people, they don't know ... if they will be found, when they will be found, where they will be found..."

They kept the child's shoe as an important reminder of why they were there, and who they were there to help.

"Remembering was really important for me ... there's so much loss there that still hasn't been uncovered."

Excavators were needed to dig through the massive piles of debris, but "you have to have a road to get an excavator" and many roads were washed away and closed.

"Everybody was always looking for bodies. But I did not go on a cadaver team. I was with people looking for people who are alive," Holder said. "There's nothing I, as a nurse, can do for somebody who's already deceased, but there's a lot I can do for somebody who's alive."

Out on an assignment in Lickskillet, a local man, wary of looters, stopped Holder's group to check on why they were in the neighborhood, and the interaction quickly became positive after he learned they were there to help.

"Come to find out, his wife had been going down every day to the fire department and making delicious home breakfast for all the first responders. There was this whole crew of lovely humans making us food all day, every day, with no infrastructure, mind you..."

Chatting in his yard amongst downed power lines, Holder asked the man, "What can I do for you?"

And like many folks Holder encountered, he told her there are other people nearby who have it worse, and need help more than he did.

But having connection to the outside world would make life easier up on the hill, they realized, so Holder arranged to get him a Starlink. "He was over the moon..."

Holder's heart was struck by the fact locals were taking care of the responders even while their own homes were in disrepair, as well as the prevalent neighbors-first mentality that she encountered "over and over and over again..."

"That love of neighbor was so apparent to me, like every day ... protecting each other, making sure nobody was coming to loot or take advantage, and just wanting to show love to the first responders ... all of that just really made me feel a profound sense of, like, people are essentially really good, and I got to see that firsthand," Holder reflected.

After her week in North Carolina from Oct. 7 to Oct. 14, Holder returned to Petersburg.

"It was really hard to leave ... I could have just worked forever," she said.

"I've never seen anything like it. In a lot of ways, I hope I never do again. But ... it was just really special to me, to be able to be a part of that and see ... we're gonna make it."

In an update from one of the ad hoc second-in-command nurses in N.C. last weekend, Holder heard good news: remote road access is being reestablished, primary care offices are reopening, and the medical outreach needs are waning, so the emergency operations will wrap up this Friday as they shift into the recovery phase.

"That's so different than how it was," Holder told the Pilot, "That just speaks to the level of work that's gone into that recovery ... just really uplifting and encouraging news."

The recent reopening of a nearby Bojangles fast-food chain also brought Holder to the verge of tears. "Downtown is open enough that people can go get a biscuit, and that matters."

Back in Petersburg, Holder reflected on the valuable role first responders hold in rural communities.

"When things get really hard, when things get bad ... places like your volunteer fire department, are the thing that makes a difference between, truly, life and death in your community... And I really would encourage anybody who's interested to check it out," she said. "It's so important. It's so valuable. Every single volunteer really matters."

"Even if one person in the community joins our fire department, that would be great. We really can take the lessons of this and make a big difference in Petersburg ... we cannot have too many people responding to emergencies in our community," she said. "The safety, the quality of life, the cohesion in our community, the more people we have that are ready to do that ... it enhances all of our well being."