For four late September days and nights, Knoxville Police Dept. (KPD) Det. Luis Vazquez saw what devastation is like, up close and personal, in Elk Mills, Tennessee, in Carter County. Four members of KPD’s Swiftwater Search & Rescue team were part of the emergency first responders there to help and do what they could.

What Mother Nature left behind in the wake of Hurricane Helene is almost unthinkable – billions of dollars in damages, communities and towns washed away, destroyed, families ripped apart, deaths and many people still missing. People have no flood insurance to help, roads are destroyed, bridges disappeared. Whatever was in the flood’s path, from Upper East Tennessee and North Carolina’s northwest to Asheville and below, is not there today. Restoring power is a major challenge for Duke Power.

The Elk Mills Volunteer Fire Department station is gone, along with its tanker engine, somewhere in the Watauga River. People remain in shock. What now? What’s next? How did this happen?

Vazquez saw much of it. “It was a humbling experience. Communities gone. Houses wiped out. Vehicles of all kinds in the water, floating by us. Cars and big trucks, houses, anything you can imagine. Most of these people lost everything.”

KPD’s Luis Vazquez, far right, and other first responders unload supplies from a Blackhawk helicopter for the families trapped in the Hurricane Helena flooding

But one aspect of this disaster has remained with Vazquez – the resiliency and love these people have for one another. “Seeing the people come together, their love and caring for each other. That was eye opening and incredibly amazing. Not knowing about your loved ones. Are they dead or alive? Isolated. I kept thinking ‘What if that was my family, us?’ No cell service. The heartache they were feeling, but they hugged and loved. Again, incredible. It’s all they have left – love. I think that’ll get them through all of this in the end.”

The KPD team after returning from its work in western North Carolina — Officer James Kennedy, Det. Luis Vazquez, Chief Paul Noel, Caleb Bailey, Sgt. Jimmy Kennedy and Asst. Chief David Powell

One small community was cut off from everything. “It was called Bob’s Island. He was the Constable and we didn’t get his last name. He was taking care of those people like they are his family and some probably were. Generations of families live there, and they were standing side by side helping and loving each other. That touches you.”

Vazquez, 34, a native of Chicago, was thinking about his family when seeing families there – wife Taylor and their six children, ages 15 to 4. Five boys and a girl. The 15-year-old is in the KPD Explorer training program and intends to follow in Dad’s footsteps.

Before joining KPD, he was a Jefferson City Fire Dept. firefighter for two years and was on the fringes working on the 2016 Gatlinburg Fire. In Chicago, he spent five years as a Chicago Mass Transit Authority canine officer, working on city buses, trains and at O’Hare International Airport. That piqued his interest in a law enforcement career – but somewhere besides Chicago, a city now known for its murders and shootings. Chicago, he says, is part of this past.

Vazquez and the KPD team of Sgt. Jimmy Wilson, Police Academy Firearms Instructor James Kennedy and Officer Caleb Bailey were there from Friday to Monday, Sept. 27-30, a week ago today. Helene made landfall in Florida on Thursday, Sept. 26, in the morning, turned northeast up the Gulf Coast and blasted its way through Georgia and into South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia with record rainfall, massive flooding, high winds, and even a few tornadoes. In most places, the only sound to be heard came from the roaring water.

Working with them was a team from the Knoxville Fire Department – Asst. Chief Robby Copas, Capt. Matt Beavers, Capt. Brad Elliott, Master Firefighters Jordan Adcox and John Buckner, and Senior Firefighters Jacob Hanover, Matt Jasiecki and Nick Johnson.

These teams did not find or recover any bodies. They searched for them, marking spots where a body could be found under the debris. They did cut trees and helped clear a few roads, boat ramps and assisted other local agencies and individuals in loading, unloading and delivering relief to those stranded – water, food, generators and toiletries.

Today, the death count is more than 200, with many others missing or unaccounted for. “We talked about that, those missing, that we may be back up here when the water recedes and the vehicles and debris show their trapped victims. Then it becomes a recovery effort,” Vazquez said.

This special Search & Rescue team is very different from his regular KPD job. For two years he has been a member of the department’s Special Crimes Unit. He handles human trafficking cases, missing kids, investigates any sex crimes against children, primarily, and adults, and sex abuse cases. Prior to this job, he was on patrol for five years but always wanted to be a detective.

“As a detective I have more freedom to focus on these cases involving children and see them through,” the seven-year KPD veteran says. “I am very passionate about what I do. I know that adults abusing and injuring our children is the ultimate evil. Anyone who harms a child is a monster and I want to put those monsters back in their closets.”

Vazquez’s motivation to investigate sexual abuse cases is very personal, yet he and his wife agreed to discuss it. “When my wife, Taylor, was 13 and 14 she was abused a lot by her stepfather and that trauma is with her today. It did create issues when we started dating and into our marriage. Trust. Having normal husband and wife intimacy. Flashbacks to the abuse plus the emotional and mental issues,” he explained.

He and Taylor have been together for 18 years and have worked through this off and on through the years. It remains an issue to this day. “Her mother still does not believe her about this, that her husband could not have done this to her. So, it’s a been a tough road for her and for us.”

Interestingly, Vazquez’s path to Knoxville and East Tennessee has to do with its people, the kind of people he encountered last week. “A friend of mine moved here and said we should come here, so we visited and fell in love with things here, especially the people and their southern hospitality and welcoming love for us,” he said. “We felt like we needed to be here. We felt drawn here and we’ll be here forever.”

He’s also ready to return to the rivers and communities once the water recedes. If KPD sends a team or teams to assist in the search and recovery process for those missing, he will volunteer to be part of that. “I’m the type who finishes what I started. It wouldn’t sit right with me if I had the opportunity to go back to finish the job and did not take it,” he says.

And he added this: “I have a big heart and would give anyone the shirt off my back to these people who have lost everything, things that can never be replaced. I moved to the South because folks around here still believe in love thy neighbor and that’s simply what I’m doing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Tom King has been the editor of newspapers in Texas and California and also worked in Tennessee and Georgia. If you have someone you think we should consider featuring, please email him at the link with his name or text him at 865-659-3562.