Nevada Task Force-1 working on hurricane recovery in Tennessee — PHOTOS

The 45-member Nevada Task Force-1 sent to assist in Hurricane Helene recovery is working in Jonesborough in far eastern Tennessee.

“They have been doing boat operations and working with K-9 teams in a search/rescue capacity,” Clark County Deputy Fire Chief Billy Samuels said in an email. “NV-TF1 is also responsible for the decontamination of all personnel and vehicles that go out to assist in the search efforts in that region.”

The unit left Las Vegas last Friday just hours after the hurricane came ashore in the Big Bend area of Florida and delivered widespread devastation to at least six southeast states as the most powerful hurricane since Katrina struck New Orleans nearly two decades ago.

“They (task force members) are all grateful for the opportunity to serve those in need,” Samuels said. “And of course the people of Jonesborough are showing their thanks by making sure our guys get hot meals each night. They have at least one more day of work in the Jonesborough area, and then we will see where they go from there.”

The task force is one of 28 FEMA Teams, activated with personnel from the Clark County Fire Department, Las Vegas Fire Department, North Las Vegas Fire Department, Boulder City Fire Department, Henderson Fire Department and private civilians.

Typically, the recovery missions are for 14 days, but can be shorter or longer depending upon the need of the communities and the scope of the incident. The capabilities of this team consist of search, recovery, rescue, heavy rigging, water operations, rescue K-9s, intelligence gathering and whatever else the community needs.

Helene came ashore in Florida on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 storm and carved a path of destruction as it moved northward, killing more than 220 people in six states, including at least 72 in Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, North Carolina. Jopnesborough is about 90 miles north of Asheville.

Nearly 700,000 homes and businesses in the six states — most in the Carolinas and Georgia — were still without power on Friday, according to poweroutage.us. That’s an improvement over the more than 2 million customers without power five days ago. Duke Energy, the dominant electricity provider in North Carolina, said it hoped to restore power by Sunday night to many of its affected customers. But for roughly 100,000 customers living in places with catastrophic damage, it could be next week or longer, said Bill Norton, a company spokesperson.

“We’re talking about places where the homes no longer exist,” Norton said, adding that some roads where utility poles once stood have been completely washed away.

The power company said it would miss its Friday goal of getting power restored to almost all of its customers in South Carolina and that it was now shooting for Sunday.

Dominion Energy also said Friday that it would take longer than initially expected to restore power to the hardest hit counties in South Carolina.

Contact Marvin Clemons at mclemons@reviewjournal.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.