Outside Mission emergency room, families await word on loved ones

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Outside Mission emergency room, families await word on loved ones

ASHEVILLE – Outside the emergency room at HCA Healthcare’s Mission Hospital in Asheville Sept. 29, loved ones waited for word on family members being treated inside, days after Tropical Storm Helene wreaked havoc across Western North Carolina, killing at least 10 people in Buncombe County and five in Henderson County.

Shawn Hensley, 47, of Black Mountain, told the Citizen Times his 65-year-old mother arrived at the hospital the night before because she was running low on oxygen.

Hensley said Helene, which dumped torrents of rain into already swollen rivers and delivered high winds that brought down trees and power lines, devasted Black Mountain, east of Asheville. Multiple roadways were washed out, according to Hensley, and neighbors had to chainsaw a tree blocking his car so he could get out.

Outside Mission emergency room, families await word on loved ones

“It looks like Mother Nature just stomped all over that little town,” Hensley said. “It’s just destruction everywhere you look.”

There have been 30 confirmed deaths in Buncombe County as a result of Tropical Storm Helene, Quentin Miller, Buncombe County’s sheriff, said at a Sept. 29, 4 p.m. briefing with city and county officials.

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