In late September, hospitals all over the USA were affected when Hurricane Helene hit the Marion factory of medical supply company Baxter International, which produces 60% of the bags of intravenous for US hospitals. The factory’s shutdown triggered immediate shortages of IV fluid at hospitals and delayed medical procedures nationwide.

Helene also damaged one of McDowell County’s elementary schools, Old Fort, that was only four years old. But, despite the damage, schools were at the centre of recovery for the small mountain community for weeks after Helene. Classrooms became emergency food distribution sites; school parking lots became fueling stations for emergency responders; and bus drivers transported factory employees. “They stepped up, and really in some areas that aren’t educational at all,” said McDowell County manager Ashley Wooten.

The McDowell County school system became the only source of fuel for emergency vehicles and generators, distributing thousands of gallons from its reserves. The county’s water treatment plant ran on generators thanks to the school district’s fuel, and area residents used the fuel to fill their gas-powered chainsaws and clear thousands of downed trees.

People from all over the community showed up to the county’s emergency operations center to help the schools, whether by dropping off donations or sawing fallen trees, said Amy Dowdle, director of human resources at McDowell County Schools.

“We were able to account for all of our families that week after the storm, which was a huge relief,” Dowdle said. “A lot of them had lost everything, but our kiddos themselves were safe.”

A few days after Helene, the school district was already planning to resume classes the following week. Along with providing child care for parents dealing with the aftermath of the storm, Dowdle said, district leaders wanted to provide some normalcy for students and staff as the community dealt with unimaginable destruction. 

The Baxter plant is located in the small mountain community of Marion because the aquifer supplies the millions of gallons of water a day needed to manufacture the intravenous fluids. The heavy rain and storm surge triggered a levee breach, dumping four feet of water into the 1.4 million-square-foot plant and damaging its parking lots and the bridges to the site. 

The plant, which employs about 2,500 people, is a huge part of McDowell County’s economy, and of the national medical supply chain. 

But Helene destroyed the plant’s parking lot, so just days after the storm, the plant and school district came up with the solution of having school bus drivers ferry employees back and forth to the factory, even as schools were in the process of opening their own doors to students. Baxter continued to pay its employees during disaster recovery, and the company funded fuel for the buses and overtime hours for the school district’s bus drivers.

For a month, Melissa Sisk, a receptionist at North Cove Elementary School who also drove one of the buses, worked a 14-hour day. She picked up the Baxter employees at a local park, dropped them off at the plant by 7 a.m., then ran the front desk at the school. At 5:30 p.m., she brought the workers back to their cars at the park.

Baxter officials initially thought it would likely take them four months to get the plant up and running again. But it actually took much less time. By Oct. 7, Baxter resumed shipments to hospitals and dialysis patients with finished goods from the North Cove site that had not been impacted by the storm, and more than 1,000 employees were back to work. An additional 1,000 remediation contracts were on site to aid in cleanup and recovery, it said. 

“This week, we expect to have 3,000 people contributing to recovery efforts – with 2/3 of those being Baxter employees,” Baxter said Oct. 14. “We also continued to serve 100+ colleagues every day at our employee support center, where we offer food, water and toiletries as well as access to showers, laundry facilities, computers and generators – as many of our employees still don’t have access to power.”

Colleagues at Baxter sites across the US began clothing drives to collect cold weather gear, and the Baxter International Foundation donated nearly $3.7 million to support employees and communities impacted by Helene, including $1.5 million in grants to three humanitarian partners and more than $2 million in funding to employees through Baxter’s Employee Disaster Relief Fund.

During October, FDA allowed temporary imports from nine plants across Baxter’s global network, including Canada, China (two sites), Ireland, the UK, Mexico, Spain, Thailand and Singapore. This allowed Baxter to increase US allocation levels of its highest demand IV fluids for direct customers from 40% to 60%, and for distributors from 10% to 60% beginning Oct. 7.

“The pace of recovery at Baxter’s North Cove facility has been very encouraging,”  José (Joe) E. Almeida, chair, president and chief executive officer, said Oct. 17. “Our local team has been tenacious in the face of daunting challenges, as we have advanced from site flooding and inaccessibility to deep cleaning and preparing equipment for restart– all in less than three weeks.”

“In parallel, we have transported more than 450 truckloads of undamaged finished products off site and to customers and have activated our global manufacturing network in support of our life-sustaining Mission. We will build on this strong progress as we prepare to begin restarting North Cove production in the coming weeks.”

“We salute our North Cove team, 2,500+ strong, who are fueling our recovery, and we continue to support them through a range of initiatives as they navigate the personal and local toll of Hurricane Helene. We also recognize the countless dedicated colleagues worldwide who mobilized almost instantly to support their colleagues and help address supply continuity. …..And we are grateful for the collaborative support of multiple federal, state and local agencies, all of which fully recognize the vital role of our North Cove site in U.S. healthcare.”

By mid-November, Baxter had restarted two of its IV solutions manufacturing lines which represent approximately 50% of the site’s total production and approximately 85% of the site’s production of one-liter IV solutions, the most commonly used size by hospitals and clinics.

“We didn’t realize until it made national headlines that there’s an IV shortage all over,” said Kim Effler, president of the McDowell County Chamber of Commerce. “When we saw this national IV shortage and conservation of IV fluids because our operation went down, we realized our big contribution to the nation.”

Even as the plant returns to normal, the surrounding community faces a long recovery, says Hechinger Report. North Cove Elementary is a rural school of about 225 students, 60% of whom come from low-income families. Several of those families lost their homes, and a few are living in houses without heat or electricity because they can’t afford to move, says Principal Adam Wiseman.

North Cove has former students who work at the Baxter plant, and some of them have children of their own in McDowell County Schools. The 70-plus-hour work weeks were worth it to help those families out, Sisk said. “It boils down to taking care of each other. That was my way of helping not only my community, but my students here, their families,” she said. “It’s what’s right. It was just my part. There’s so many people that have done so much, and it was just my little part of helping.”

“We’re just a big family, and we take care of each other. If there’s a need, we really try to help each other out as much as we can,” she said.

Sources:

School buses came to the rescue for a hurricane-battered health company and the parents who work there Hechinger Report

Baxter Hurricane Helene updates

Baxter Provides Updates on Efforts to Increase Access to and Supply of IV Solutions American Hospital Association, Oct. 24 2024

Baxter International provides updates on recovery efforts after Helene. WCNC, Nov. 18 2024

Cover image: A McDowell County Schools bus leaves Baxter International’s campus in Marion, North Carolina, after dropping off employees at the plant. Juan Diego Reyes for The Hechinger Report