Rescue and recreation: River safety after the storm

When the flooding starts, it's not just water filling the streets and buildings."You're looking at diesel and gasoline, residential cleaning supplies and all types of things that aren't normally floating down the river," said Jessie Bishop, deputy fire chief of the Kingsport Fire Department. "There's just so much unknown of what that is."Bishop is part of the District 1 swiftwater team, which includes the Kingsport, Bristol and Johnson City fire departments. It also includes local emergency medical services and emergency management agencies. During times of crisis, the crews — which have received international recognition for their work during Helene — deploy for search and rescue on both land and water.Helene demonstrated how much a natural disaster can distort a once-familiar landscape. From navigating water debris during rescue to new rapids months after, both rescue teams and recreationists must stay cautious to stay safe in changing waters.Rescue teams train, use special equipmentIn the first few days after the storm, the swiftwater teams searched the water on boats. They used hand tools to pick up objects while wearing drysuits to stay safe from possible contaminants. While these suits also provide thermal protection, they're different than wetsuits because they completely prevent water from reaching the wearer.Bishop said teams clean and wash equipment after taking it out to avoid cross-contamination, filling out exposure reports that can help trace possible health effects later on.After a few days, the team transitioned to searching on land, where they learned that floodwaters had pushed silt and dirt from the bottom of rivers into the fields."It wasn't just like walking on solid ground. They were walking in knee deep, sometimes hip deep," Bishop said. "They were actually stepping into things without a lot of protection. One of the takeaways for that was for us to buy muck boots."Helene also highlighted other equipment and training priorities the team needs to keep in mind for the future."It definitely makes you go back and look at things from a different perspective and say, 'Okay, so what equipment do we need? What additional training do we need?'" Bishop said.Through a $353,000 Federal Emergency Management Agency grant, which was awarded before Helene, Bishop said the team trained across multiple disciplines and reallocate other money toward equipment. They focus on training at least three out of six rescue disciplines out a year, and also complete annual swim and confined space tests."In the past, we have struggled to be able to maintain those levels [of training]," Bishop said. "Staying current on the training is definitely key for all of our personnel to be able to maintain their skills and knowledge base."One of the most important aspects of safety is maintaining a high level of situational awareness, he added."Oftentimes the real-world scenarios don't line up with what you do in the training," Bishop said. "So you have to be able to take those skills and work through that and be able to make adjustments to fit the scenario."Recreationists navigate new watersKevin Colburn, a whitewater boater and national stewardship director of nonprofit conservation group American Whitewater, added that there is a lot of overlap between paddlers and recreationists and rescue teams."Paddlers kind of have that special power where they can go out and safely traverse rivers," he said, adding that many paddlers mobilized last year to help both on and off the water. "I was proud of our little community of river people."Flooding overran the Nolichucky, French Broad and Pigeon rivers and piled debris throughout towns like Erwin, Greeneville and Newport. In some cases, the rubble was as large as a building, Bishop said."It was really man-made debris," added Colburn. "There's not much wood that could stay in a river channel during Helene, like it all got flushed way downstream. But railroad ties and road bridges and chunks of metal and shipping containers, those didn't move as readily."The rivers became mysterious again after a storm, Colburn said."Helene was this really bittersweet event where we lost rapids," Colburn said. "But also there was this opportunity to explore essentially new river beds in places that we knew. And so when you do that, you have to approach it with a great deal of caution."For the paddling community and other recreationists, venturing back out again is a self-governing system. Colburn said that better paddlers go in first with good equipment and a strong group, moving slowly and cautiously. They report information about the hazards and new shape of the river, eventually bringing more people into the fold."We just get to learn rivers again," he said.But while some embraced the new face of the rivers, others are still on land. Colburn said he knows avid paddlers that haven't hit the rivers almost a year later."Part of that is logistics, it's weirder and harder than it used to be to paddle here … there's rivers that are still blocked," he said. "But I think a bigger part of that is probably just emotional, of going through such a stressful event, I think it makes people less interested in stressful recreation."Jorgelina Manna-Rea contributed to this article.