By Drew C. Robinson, Tribune Staff Writer

As rain fell and waters rose in Cocke County on Thursday, neighboring emergency responders began to filter into the area to be used as needed. One of those units was the Morristown Rescue Squad.
Though flooding was severe and one woman lost her life, the water began to recede after a while and though they made it into the county, the squad did not deploy into any active rescue. It was still a valuable experience for the team that has spent much of the past year training and being ready for swift water emergencies.

“We ran one call and it ended up, the Jefferson County SWAT team jumped on it and got there before we did,” Morristown Rescue Squad Captain Brandon Stanley. “(Flooding in Cocke County) was pretty chaotic, to say the least. I can only imagine what it would be for us in that situation.”

MRS Swift Water Team Lead Alan Wood said the deployment was the first for the team since everyone on the team had been certified through a proper training and examination process.

The team is comprised of: Alan Wood, team lead, swift-water technician, EMA officer and U.S. Coast Guard veteran; Brandon Stanley, squad captain and swift-water technician; Zach Troup, swift-water technician and U.S. Army veteran; Jacob Courtney, paramedic and swift-water technician; Geoffrey Alford, paramedic and swift-water operator; and Jason Stanley, junior rescue squad member.
“It was an interesting time to shake off the rust and see what the training kicked in and everything else,” he said. “We had a lot of conversations about what did we did right, and what (we could improve).”

He said flooding is always a thing that can defy prediction and catch people off guard and that’s why training is necessary.

“This is not quite the same area that got affected during Helene, but, an area that wasn’t going to get flooded again for another 100 years got flooded in less than two,” Wood said.
The team spent time in the Cocke County EMA’s Emergency Operations Center and it was valuable insight into emergency management. Hamblen County EMA Director Ricky Purkey was there helping and the squad members said the experience was enlightening.

“Me and Alan kind of stayed in their EOC, which is their command (center),” Stanley said. We watched how that went down and the issues they were having and stuff like that. We began talking about and looking into doing more training with our EOC for big events. (We thought about) different things that we could do to help (in our county). It was a big learning experience for me.”

Wood said it was clear that Cocke County had learned lessons from their experience from Hurricane Helene and was complimentary about the work he saw.

“A helicopter was up over top of everything, looking up and down the rivers and calling in people stranded or people in cars stuck or in houses surrounded by water,” he said. “And then they would respond a team out to them. We probably observed at least a half dozen calls, maybe 10 during the time we were at EOC watching everything and it handled well.”

He observed there were still radio issues that were present. It is very difficult to bounce radio signals around the deep hollers and crevices around the mountains in Cocke County.
Stanley said that the people in water in Hamblen County have different concerns as they enjoy Cherokee Lake in the summer.

“My biggest concern is not necessarily flooding — it’s wearing a life jacket,” he said. “Our lakes is real popular and a lot of people like to swim without a life jacket. So, that’s a major issue for us. We usually work one to two drownings a year because somebody didn’t wear a life jacket.”