An embalmer worked by flashlight as Helene's floodwaters rose| NC Health News

The Charlotte Ledger

Lonnie Denny works as an embalmer at a funeral home in the Ashe County town of West Jefferson, and when the floodwaters began rising from Hurricane Helene, Denny cared for bodies by flashlight until it was no longer safe and he was forced to head for home.

Denny, 54, is a West Jefferson native who moved with his wife to Trenton, Ga., in 2013 to be near his grandkids. He returned home in 2022 to be closer to family and to continue his career in the funeral industry.

He spoke with The Charlotte Ledger recently about what it was like trying to tend to the deceased as the flooding was happening, what he makes of rumors about the number of victims who have died as a result of the floods, and his concern for the long-term impacts the crisis may have on the people of his town.

His comments are edited for length and clarity.

That morning [the Friday the flooding began], it was already bad as my wife and I both — she’s a nurse — we’re both trying to make our way to where we needed to be [at work]. We had been extremely busy ever since August. We were just, I guess, in that season where we’ve had a lot of people passing away, and so I had several people in the back that needed attention and work done.

The pressure is unbelievable, because our lights were flickering that morning, and you’re trying to get these bodies ready. And finally, the power went out. At that point, I had a co-worker with a flashlight, holding a flashlight while I tended to bodies. I was dressing and casketing them.

Our road that goes into the funeral home — we have two sides, and a creek was coming up over the lower side. And so at that point, we said, “We just have to go. We have to quit.” And so we kind of just abandoned ship at that point.

I came home. I live in a condo in West Jefferson. I’m on the upper level. I have neighbors who live below me, and our parking lot flooded probably 3 feet. Some of my neighbors downstairs started getting water coursing into their units. In town, that’s kind of how it was. Our power was out, not out like everybody else — [after] just a few hours it came back on.

We didn’t have an issue with bodies [decomposing] in the cooler, because our power came back on later that day. Bodies that require us to hold without embalming are stored in a cooler.

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So the power going off won’t cause a body to instantly break down. If the door is kept closed, then it should be fine for the near future. You wouldn’t want to leave them too long, of course. Decomposition is determined by environment. Warm, wet conditions cause the body to break down at a higher rate than being cold or even dry. Think of mummies in Egypt.

We can embalm when the power goes out. It’s kind of an arcane system, but it’s the original embalming way that developed during the Civil War. It’s called gravity-fed embalming, and we have a tank with a hose on it that we can hang at a certain height depending on the [cadaver’s] body weight [allowing embalming fluid to flow into the body].

We don’t have to have electricity. We did have people at work the following Saturday, and we had a funeral on Sunday. We were very fortunate to still be able to serve our community through all of this.

I honestly don’t know the details. I just know that it involved her and her husband being in a Jeep that got, I guess, just in a flash flood. … It just took her away.

I don’t believe [rumors that thousands have died as a result of the flooding] are true. One reason why I would say that is because we have established communication through the county now, and we’re not getting these large numbers of people reporting missing people.

Watching the storm waters rise was terrifying. There’s just a part of you that just can’t believe it’s actually happening. It just felt so surreal.

As I was able to get back online later that evening, I started getting pictures in from Lansing [another town in Ashe County], which is my mother’s hometown, and just started seeing the devastation. It was just so incredible and overwhelming.

And then my first thought goes to, how many people have passed? How many people are lost right now or have been swept away? And, you know, as a funeral professional, that’s a big question for us, you know, how are we going to manage this if it turns into a crisis?

Yeah, and we’re just so grateful that that hasn’t happened. You know, thankfully, it hasn’t, but we’ve still got a long ways to go, so we still don’t yet know what the impact is going to be, I guess.

We’re still busy. Now my concern is not so much about hurricane deaths as primary deaths, but secondary deaths. When people have lost everything, the stress of all of that really starts to hit home.

I’m worried about our neighbors and their health. I have truly been surprised we didn’t have more deaths. But my concerns now are the side effects from the hurricane. People have lost everything, and the stress of that can be devastating.

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by Charlotte Ledger, North Carolina Health News November 4, 2024

The Charlotte Ledger is an online publication that produces business and general local news for Charlotte. It is led by two award-winning former Charlotte Observer reporters. See more at Charlotteledger.substack.com