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…