KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — It's been almost a week since Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida and thrashed across the Southeast. First responders from local, state and federal agencies have been helping recover from the aftermath in East Tennessee.
Among them were Tennessee Army National Guardsmen stationed at McGhee Tyson Airport. When the storm caused flooding in Unicoi County, consuming the county hospital, they were some of the first to respond.
Dan Backus, an Alcoa native and chief warrant officer in the Tennessee National Guard, said he and the rest of the guardsmen were eager to join the rescue operations on Friday, though Helene posed challenging conditions.
"The winds were violent. There was a lot of turbulence. I've been telling the guys after we got done flying that day, I felt like I'd gotten beat up in a street fight or something," Backus said.
He was the co-pilot on a Black Hawk helicopter with Captain Brandon Rodriguez, an 18-year military veteran who served in the Coast Guard for six years before transitioning to the Tennessee Army National Guard. He acknowledged that conditions both in the air and on the ground were dynamic, though not beyond the training he and Backus have received.
Rodriguez said he and Backus began to problem-solve as soon as they arrived on the scene.
"My co-pilot Dan Backus and I chose to go to the left side and start working hoist missions, and we tasked our other two aircraft with staying on the right side, from our perspective, of the hospital doing the ambulatory patient transfers," he said.
The duo said they coordinated rescue flights with several different first responder agencies, evacuating stranded patients from the roof of Unicoi County Hospital. They operated out of a makeshift operations center at a local high school. They also rescued first responders and individuals stranded in boats or on pieces of floating debris around the area.
"We got four of the most critical patients. They were all in a little boat on the backside of this hospital," Backus said.
Friday's emergency has led to almost a week of constant missions to areas affected by Hurricane Helene. Rodriguez said crews from McGhee Tyson Airport rescued about 100 people over the weekend and have delivered tens of thousands of pounds of supplies to those in need.
He said all hands are on deck.
"We got maintenance on aircraft. We got, you know, all my operations guys right here behind you, fuelers on the ground, people grabbing goods and whatnot, loading them into our aircraft. A lot of assets, a lot of moving parts," he said.
Both Backus and Rodriguez said they'll continue to fly as needed. As they spoke with WBIR, three Black Hawk helicopters lifted off on another relief mission.