Friday September 27th Hurricane Helene destroyed a wide swath from FL, through GA, SC and really destroyed parts of western NC. Even as I write this, 20 days later, thousands are still without power in that area according to the Duke energy outage map.
Matt Martinka and his apprentice, Nathan Curlee with Duke Energy were restoring power in the Asheville area and because both are veterans (Matt is an Air Force veteran, Nathan a Marine) they decided they needed to try and get the VA hospital back on line ASAP. There was no way to drive their truck out there as the roads were destroyed. They knew the direction towards the hospital so they just decided to lug their equipment about 1.5 miles.
Matt describes the trip "I was covered with bushes to our chest. And then when we finally got to an open area, it was the washed-out from the floods. So with every step, you’re almost losing your boots in the mud. When we finally got there, it was kind of hard to climb because I had so much mud on my boots. But it was all worth it to get to the VA. I feel like we in our own way gave back. I mean, them guys [veterans] have given so much. So in our own way, we gave it back to them.”