A version of this article first appeared in WFAE’s Climate Newsletter. Sign up here to receive weekly climate news straight to your inbox.
When Hurricane Helene flooded the town of Black Mountain, community members were stranded. The resulting blackouts meant residents couldn’t call for help. But one group of volunteers is resurrecting an old technology to face a new generation of storms. WFAE first covered this group and their plans to use radios, solar power and community-fueled responses in September for the anniversary of Hurricane Helene.
I caught up with Black Mountain’s Community Emergency Response Team again during their first deployment. Fortunately, this time it wasn’t during a life-threatening storm or other cataclysm, but instead during a night of manmade frights.
CERT-ified spooky season
Halloween is a big event in this small mountain community of roughly 9,000 residents, according to local Marshall Wight, who said “3,000 plus” kids come through from the surrounding communities.
The police blocked off part of the town for trick-or-treaters. Inflatable ghosts and plastic tombstones line the streets. A mechanical werewolf growled and howled in the crisp mountain air, as mini superheroes, princesses and cartoon characters toted around bags of candy in the late afternoon sun.
At the far end of the block, volunteer Chris Kepler reviewed her map. She was working at one of two reunification tents.
“We’re assisting with lost kids,” Kepler said. “We can communicate between our team by putting out a description of the child or the parent if the parent got lost from the child.”
She’s a member of Black Mountain’s new Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT. The volunteer group constructed after Helene to help residents prepare for the next big storm.
“There were a lot of people who wanted to do more, but we weren’t trained,” Kepler said. “We were a liability to the fire department and police department.”
The volunteers come from a range of backgrounds. Kepler served 25 years in the military. Another volunteer is a retired primary care physician.
Others have no prior emergency experience. Halloween is the team’s first deployment. They’ve been training for the last few months to use the town’s backup radio network, established after the primary network was overloaded during Helene.
Keeping it courteous on the airwaves
The radio crackled to life as another volunteer radioed Kepler:
“What members will be in each group, please?” the volunteer asked.
From Allen Mountain overlooking the town, a solar-powered repeater received the message and retransmitted it to Kepler’s radio. Volunteer firefighter David Billstrom listened in.
“They’re trying to use their Victor numbers — Victor for volunteer — instead of names,” Billstrom said.
Kepler responded that she’s with “Victor 215,” but the radio clips the first part of the message. She releases the button. Krr.
Billstrom has been training volunteers to use the radios. Halloween night might not be a natural disaster, but it gives the volunteers a chance to hone their chops.
He said there are a few do’s and don’t’s they have to follow:
“The repeater needs a chance to catch up with you, so you have to press the button to talk and hesitate for just a minute — the rule is half a second — and then start talking,” Billstrom said.
Disaster communications for the ‘end of the world’
He also said they need to keep communications brief. Immediately after Helene, the primary emergency radio network failed. Emergency services had converged on the region, and the radios couldn’t keep up.
The town had been devastated, according to Black Mountain Fire Chief John Coffey:
“You ever see one of those documentaries where they talk about the end of the world and they show all these clips of just horrible weather conditions? That was it,” Coffey said.
Coffey said that when he contacted the county for backup, the county denied the request. There was no way for vehicles to access the town — they were an island.
The rest of the town was in the same boat. When the flood waters receded, Kepler leaped into action, using her chainsaw to clear debris. A year later, the memories are still fresh.
“One of my neighbors — a tree fell down across her entire front yard. It blocked her in. She was on oxygen,” Kepler said. “Of course, we didn’t have power or anything, and I wasn’t quite sure how I would get hold of first responders. The 911 system was down.”
Kepler’s story mirrors that of many Black Mountain residents. The communication blackout left lasting scars on the community, but the volunteer emergency response program is giving folks back their peace of mind.
“People are excited to have a device that actually works, that's not connected to the internet, because they all had that trauma of not having a phone, in some cases, for a couple of weeks,” Billstrom said.
‘Is there more that I could have done?’
As Halloween night wound down, he declared the training exercise a success. At least four parents and children were reunited. No injuries were reported. Next, the volunteers will debrief, plan more trainings and continue refining their radio etiquette.
For Kepler, this program has given her some hope about the possibility of future disasters.
“I always wanted to know: Is there more that I could have done?” Kepler said. “So, this gives me the skills to hopefully continue to educate my neighbors, first and foremost, and my family, and make sure that we’re ready, and be able to help the community at large.”
