IU Indianapolis emergency management director aids Hurricane Helene relief efforts in North Carolina
Oct 10, 2024
A home in western North Carolina damaged by Hurricane Helene. Photo by Jason Kephart
Jason Kephart felt a sense of duty and purpose to help with Hurricane Helene relief efforts in western North Carolina when he was asked to volunteer.
Kephart, Emergency Management and Continuity director in Indianapolis for IU Public Safety, has been a firefighter for 18 years and has responded to tornadoes, floods, hurricanes and wildfires.
Jason Kephart. Submitted photoThe impact of Hurricane Helene was more personal. Kephart has relatives who have lived in western North Carolina for generations, and he has fond memories of visits to the area. He also has professional connections to groups in regions affected by the hurricane.
The Category 4 hurricane made landfall Sept. 26. Kephart said his relatives who still live in the area were fortunate that they didn’t have any major damage to their property. But Hurricane Helene caused more than 230 deaths and billions of dollars in damages.
Kephart’s hobby of overlanding, a form of self-reliant adventure travel, gave him experience with traveling to remote areas. When retired firefighter Darrin Wood, the president and founder of wounded hero adventure company KGXpedition, asked him to volunteer with relief efforts, Kephart was eager to assist.
“There was something in me that said I need to go,” Kephart said. “And when my buddy said we have valuable experience with off-roading, I said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
On the morning of Oct. 3, he set off in his Toyota Tundra for Black Mountain, North Carolina, a town of about 8,000 residents east of Asheville. What typically would have been a 7½-hour trip took 10 because so many of the main roads were undrivable.
Kephart’s role was to deliver supplies to communities that had no running water or power, and where searches for missing individuals were still being conducted. Besides Black Mountain, that included Chimney Rock, Bat Cave and Swannanoa. He packed additional equipment to aid with emergency situations in case he encountered any.
Helicopters brought supplies to a landing zone near the basecamp that the volunteers then delivered by vehicles to impacted communities. Photo by Jason Kephart
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Many roads in western North Carolina were damaged by the hurricane. Photo by Jason Kephart
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Volunteers sometimes had to use all-terrain vehicles to deliver supplies because of the damage. Photo by Jason Kephart
Hurricane Helene caused extensive property damage. Photo by Jason Kephart
After arriving on the evening of Oct. 3, Kephart helped establish an emergency operations center, stored equipment and instructed volunteers who didn’t have his background about how incident command operates. The morning of Oct. 4, Kephart and others set up a landing zone for helicopters that would be delivering supplies or taking them to other areas, and performing medical evacuations.
Then he and other volunteers — about 120 total — started out on daily operations of delivering supplies and conducting medical checks on residents. Sometimes that required using all-terrain vehicles because roads had been destroyed.
“Everyone stepped in and did what needed to be done,” he said.
What the volunteers encountered during their operations left quite an impression.
“Most of the area I saw, it looked like a flood, mudslide and tornado hit all at once,” Kephart said. “When you mix in the wind and the mud, it’s a whole different ballgame. There were still parking lots with more than a foot of mud, buildings with pieces gone, houses that had moved blocks away.
“It puts into perspective how much power there is in a mudslide. There were boulders in places you would not expect to see.”
After a few long days of working, Kephart finished his assistance and headed home to rest. However, he plans to return within a couple of weeks. The communities need trauma kits and more supplies, especially as colder weather approaches. And an effort is being made to donate fire equipment to fire stations in the impacted communities.
“Because so much has been affected, they need all the help they can get,” Kephart said.
