As Hurricane Florence approaches the coast and residents there are urged to evacuate ahead of the dangerous storm, many in East Tennessee are standing by and ready to help if needed.
KUB already has six crews assigned to leave Tuesday and Wednesday. They have been requested to help restore power if needed in Maryland and Virginia. They have other crews ready to go if they get additional requests for help.
"Whenever there is a need, there will be crews from wherever to get the lights back on," said Steven Proffitt with KUB. "We’re sending out two today, we’ll be releasing four in the morning, we’re going to look to the long term forecast and see how Florence will affect our system and I imagine there will be conversations depending on the damage about releasing more folks next week."
Crews will work alongside local utilities to help restore power to the area after the hurricane moves through.
"What they’re going to be looking for is to get commercial, hospital and schools back on and from there they will work back down on single outages, residential," said Proffitt. "We’ve made preparations internally for those crews to be gone up to two weeks."
The Sevierville Fire Department will be sending four firefighters to the east coast as part of a Swift Water Rescue Team. The team is comprised of firefighters from SFD, Gatlinburg Fire Department, Pigeon Forge Fire Department, and Knoxville Fire Department. The Sevier County agencies will be meeting Wednesday morning in Sevierville before traveling to Knoxville and then to a staging location in South Carolina.
The Knoxville Fire Department has a 6-member swift water rescue team that will also depart on Wednesday.
The Tennessee Army National Guard is making preparations to send helicopters to the affected areas, but there are no definite plans in place yet and crews are not on standby as of Tuesday.
The East Tennessee chapter of the American Red Cross has not received any requests for help yet, but are ready to send volunteers and resources wherever they are needed.
AMR has six people, mostly paramedics, and three vehicles, including two advanced life support ambulances, on standby and ready to leave when they get the call.
Remote Area Medical will be ready to transport emergency supplies by Monday if needed. The organization is already loading trucks with food, water, and blankets to deliver to the areas hardest hit by the storm.
"Food and water are the biggest things for the shelters and we are here to supply that," said Ron Brewer with RAM. "The storms are coming and we’ll be here to face them."
As the storm gets closer and if it hits and causes widespread damage, there will likely be other calls for help and East Tennesseans ready to answer.