CNN
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More than 50 people have been rescued after being stranded on the roof of a Tennessee hospital Friday — some of them for hours — due to rising floodwaters from Hurricane Helene, city officials said.
Dozens of people trapped at Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tenn., had all been taken to safety as of Friday night, Erwin Chief Medical Officer Michael Baker told CNN.
“We’ve had a steady stream of helicopters picking them up and dropping them into the city at safe locations,” Baker said earlier Friday. “There’s a helicopter on top of the hospital and we’ve got another one hovering nearby to start the carousel and get everyone going, but it’s a team effort.”
Ballad Health, which runs Unicoi, was notified that the hospital had to be evacuated around 9:30 a.m. local time on Friday, the health agency said in a post on X. But due to flooding and high winds from the deadly storm, ambulances and helicopters were unable to reach the building safely. .
Erwin, about 100 miles east of Knoxville, is located in the southern Appalachian Mountains, near the Tennessee border with North Carolina.
A total of 54 people were taken to the roof and seven others were put into lifeboats, Ballad Health said in a statement earlier Friday. The hospital system said the count included 11 patients.
The Unicoi County Hospital was “hosted by very dangerous and fast-moving water,” the X statement said. Because of how quickly the water rose around and inside the hospital, lifeboats were also unable to safely transport people.
Ballad Health called in the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard’s efforts to get the people to safety “dangerous rescue operation”.
“The water came up so fast, I literally looked at the owner and said, ‘We’ve got to get out of here,'” Baker said.
Unicoi County Hospital is a nonprofit, 10-bed hospital, according to its website.
At least 45 people have died in five states in the storm, which has caused flash flooding across the Southeast after making landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane. Now a tropical depression, the storm has left millions of customers without power, destroyed homes and caused road closures.
Angel Mitchell was among dozens trapped on the roof for four hours Friday while her 83-year-old mother, whom she was visiting, sat nearby in a lifeboat, she told CNN. Mitchell says they were quickly evacuated from a hospital room when water started entering the building.
Mitchell said the power went out and hospital staff began directing patients and visitors to the roof for safety and grabbing any necessary supplies they could.
Her mother, who was sick with pneumonia, was put in a lifeboat. Meanwhile, Mitchell says she was kicked out as she waded in chest-deep water around the side of the building to climb a ladder to the roof, at times having to grab onto the building to keep from being swept away.
“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through,” a tearful Mitchell told CNN.
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 screaming loudly down at her.
As they waited for rescue, the flood rushed past and Mitchell saw what she believed to be parts of detached houses and barns floating by them, she said. Video from the scene shows floodwaters surrounding and nearly engulfing vehicles, including at least one ambulance.
“We all tried to stay calm, but it was very difficult,” Mitchell said.
The group of patients, nurses and doctors huddled together and prayed as they waited for rescue. Mitchell says when emergency crews arrived, the water was about 10 feet below the roof line.
The helicopters took the stranded to a hospital 20 miles north of Unicoi County Hospital.
As of Friday afternoon, about 1.1 million people are under at least 14 different flash flood emergencies, the highest level of flood warning issued by the National Weather Service, which is reserved for catastrophic flooding that poses a serious threat to human life.
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