Asheville – When Hurricane Helene knocked power out in Biltmore and destroyed Asheville’s water system, it left Western North Carolina’s largest hospital running on generator power and hauling in bottled water as emergency department visits doubled from storm-related causes. Well-intended friends were encouraging the frail and elderly to go to the hospital when they could no longer operate their oxygen, CPAP, and pressurized water systems at home because downed communications systems prevented getting word out that the hospital had been subject to the same outages as the community at large.
Within a matter of days, Mission’s main campus was surrounded by shiny, silver water tankers bearing the name Davis Water Service (DWS). While one contractor described I-26 as a steady stream of water tankers headed toward Asheville, Mission was wrapped with trucks pumping water and more trucks staged to fill in as soon as they were depleted.
Ryan Davis, owner, was at the DWS command center in Asheville when he spoke with the Tribune. He said trucks with pumping equipment were being deployed from all nine DWS offices in the Southeast. Davis said this was home for the company, as its main office is in Randleman, not far from the reservoir that supplies water to the greater Greensboro area. While a lot of attention is called to the company’s engineering feat at Mission’s main campus, Davis said his tankers came to the rescue of other local hospitals in, for example, Spruce Pine and Sylva. The trucks have also been providing hurricane relief in four other states. When Hurricane Milton came along, however, some of the company’s resources were diverted to St. Petersburg and Englewood, Florida.
DWS is in the business of hurricane relief, so they’re always prepared. DWS was founded in 1978 as an agricultural seed and feed business. Then, one day, a neighbor asked for help filling a pool. They must have done a good job because they got more and more requests. Then, when Nashville flooded in 2010, DWS saw they could transfer their pool-filling technology to disaster relief, so they tooled up, with technology Davis seemed to indicate was proprietary, and moved into this niche. Now, all they do is deliver water with tankers equipped with pumps designed in-house.
Davis said, unabashedly, that some outfits currently hauling water to the area do not meticulously adhere to the same standards DWS does for water purity. When asked to discuss the successful strategy behind supplying a hospital as big as Mission with continuous, pressurized water, he said that his employees are the best. “They showed up, and they’ve been working long hours and through the night, going above and beyond. It’s really the people that work for us, not the management.” Mission’s main campus alone is getting water from about 40 trucks a day. Davis said the company has contracts with nearby municipal water systems that treat the water that keeps this supersized bucket-brigade in motion.
Davis said his company has a contract with HCA as part of the hospital conglomerate’s disaster preparedness plan. Unfortunately, plan execution did not proceed like clockwork. Mission executives have described the first 24 hours of being without water as “harrying.” For one thing, this storm was worse in extent and degree than anything but Hurricane Katrina. Katrina, however, touched down in flatlands, whereas Helene damaged mountain communities with winding roads—and interstates—that shut down and held emergency rescue teams at bay due to fallen trees, downed power lines, landslides, and washouts.
Another slight setback was that the company had staged its trucks and equipment ready for deployment in Tallahassee, where the storm was expected to touch down. Then, most of the damage occurred 500 miles away. There were some other unforeseen glitches. Davis recalled that somebody stole and wrecked the ATV the company used to make rounds for quality assurance testing and taking employees meals. More drama came when they were asked to leave the Town of Black Mountain when the state and federal funding that was paying for their services was pulled. DWS decided to continue providing water without compensation, as it was the humane thing to do. But when they were disconnecting their tanks to move them elsewhere in the town, a paparazzo started taking photos to show the world how they were depriving citizens of water at this critical time.
“The important thing is that we’re helping people,” said Davis. “We’re here to stay until our services are no longer needed.”