Hundreds of Canadian workers are staying in trailers and dark hotel rooms as they work to repair power lines in the flood-battered southeastern U.S.
They’re part of the massive relief effort after a once-in-a-century storm that washed out houses and infrastructure of every conceivable type: roads, power lines, plumbing, communications towers, even a vital mining town.
The death toll from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene remains unknown, but with 600 people unaccounted for, the White House has expressed fear it could be in the hundreds.
It has upended the U.S. presidential election. The storm struck two major swing states, North Carolina and Georgia — normal campaigning has been disrupted on the ground, while over the national airwaves, partisanship persists unabated.
Donald Trump promoted humanitarian efforts but went a step further: he claimed, bizarrely, that governors in affected states couldn’t reach President Joe Biden, despite those same governors publicly describing their conversations with the president.
“He’s lying,” an angry Biden later retorted. “I don’t know why he does this … It’s simply not true — and it’s irresponsible.”
Neither Biden nor his vice-president, Kamala Harris, held public events related to the disaster until Monday. But the federal government has thousands of workers in the region, and has approved disaster-management payments for affected people and state authorities.
Canadians arrived before the storm
Tens of thousands of workers are here from other states, the military, the private sector — and north of the border, with more than 700 Canadian line workers in the region.
The Canadians are being assigned to rebuild downed distribution lines, some of which will not surge back to life until transmission stations are repaired, which could take days.
The Canadians were there before the hurricane even made landfall.
A pair of New Brunswick-based companies, Holland Power Services and its partner Gagnon Line Construction, began sending crews to staging areas across the Carolinas early last week, after being contracted by a U.S.-based power utility.
The living conditions are par for the course on a job like this, says the man on-site leading Holland’s operation. Some workers are in crowded trailers, others are in hotels, where there’s no power, frequently no running water and in most cases no showers for days.
“The last thing we’re worried about is where we’re sleeping,” said Fredericton resident Steven Hansen, as he paused for a phone interview just outside of Charlotte, N.C., on Monday. “Every single one of the workers here is used to those conditions. We’re just thankful to have a roof over our head and a warm smile from the folks at the hotel.”
Lacking electricity and a functioning payment system, a local Wal-mart allowed the Canadians to shop using a rare international currency: the honour system. The Canadians left IOUs.
“Southern hospitality is a wonderful thing,” Hansen said.
Why this storm was different
Meanwhile, just getting gasoline is a challenge; by Hansen’s estimate, 49 of every 50 stations are currently closed, and the rare open one draws lineups so long they snake down the highway, further jamming traffic.
Emergency crews in the region have helped restore power to more than half of the 4.6 million people who originally lost it. Cellphone service is slowly returning.
But repairing damage to roads and homes will take much longer, especially in North Carolina, which is experiencing its worst flood in more than a century.
The state has been pummelled, in days, by months’ worth of rain. It already had a flood warning last month, with a state of emergency, followed by a second state of emergency last week, as a blanket of moisture preceded Helene. Then came the final deluge on Friday.
Holland’s vice-president Jim Salmon has decades of experience with storms and says the wind damage wasn’t as bad as others he’s seen.
The problem with this storm is all that water is making it hard to get from point A to point B, said Salmon. It’s been a challenge resupplying crews in western pockets of the state with food, fuel and satellite phones.
“It was exacerbated by the flooding,” Salmon said. “What’s unusual about this one is not only the damage, but getting to where the work needs to be done.”
Chaos on the campaign trail
For election campaigning, these are impossible conditions, particularly in the worst-hit area: western North Carolina, around Asheville.
Mail-in voting has already begun here, and the state elections board will hold an online news conference Tuesday to update voters on next steps.
Scheduled meetings of county elections boards have already been postponed. State officials said they can’t even reach their counterparts in one county.
Some election officials are without water, power or internet access. Some have lost their homes. During a meeting Monday of the N.C. elections board, one official described a colleague who had to walk four or five miles to get to his office.
“It is going to take some time to dig out from this,” said Stacy Eggers, a Republican on the state elections board.
Susan Thomas, a volunteer for the Democrats, was one of many who witnessed the devastation first-hand.
She was visiting Charlotte when the storm struck; unable to reach her partner in the western part of the state, she decided to drive home the next day.
She’s still amazed she made it back, with all those blocked and broken roads and shuttered gas stations.
The most frightening part involved a pair of downed trees splayed across a road near Asheville, looming like a low-lying bridge. She managed to squeeze her Mini Cooper beneath them.
“It was a little scary, going underneath those trees,” she said in an interview. “All I remember thinking was, I hope they’re secure where they are, because when they come down, they’re going to come down hard.”
She’s one of the lucky ones. Her house was fine, while some of her neighbours’ were flooded, one with a quarter-metre of water. Trees fell nearby, but missed her home.
So, about the election. Thomas has no idea what happens next. She had planned to go door-knocking next weekend in Asheville, but can’t imagine how that will happen.
On Monday, three days after the storm, she hadn’t even spoken with anyone from the Democratic Party, with cell service intermittent and limited options for charging her phone; she’s been using her car.
“I don’t have internet. Nobody has internet,” Thomas said. “You can’t canvass in this time. There’s no way.”