They had heard the warnings about incoming weather from Hurricane Helene. So the surgeons at Novant Health Surgical Partners - Biltmore checked on all of their patients in the hospital and the team closed their Asheville office for the day.
Surgeon and clinic physician lead Dr. Ioanna Mazotas (pronounced ma-zoat-us) expected flooding and maybe a short-lasting power outage.
No one in the mountains of North Carolina will ever forget what came next: more than 20 inches of rain that trigged catastrophic flooding. Widespread landslides. Roads, bridges and homes washed away. Infrastructure for communication, electricity, water — all obliterated within a few hours on Friday, Sept. 27, 2025.
It was almost incomprehensible. “One of the goals for the first couple days was just trying to get our heads around what had happened,” Mazotas said.
And while the doctors and the clinic team fretted about their own homes as well as their families, friends and neighbors living along the devastated mountainsides, they also had one more priority that could not be ignored: their patients.
Some patients had just had surgery and were weak and still recovering. They were at greater risk for infection, but the water in Asheville was not safe for drinking and bathing. Some patients were due for specialty surgeries to remove cancers and fix worsening medical situations.
The local hospital didn’t have power or water, and because of shattered infrastructure, patients’ regular deliveries of tube feed and ostomy supplies were going to be delayed.
The question was dire: What should this team do first?
Everyone looked to the ever-steady Mazotas: “She’s really the person we all go to for support,” said clinic administrator Becky Pressley. “I often tell her ‘You’re the one that grounds me.’”
Step one: ‘Make sure everyone was OK.’
The first thing the surgical practice did was establish contact with the entire team. That itself was a massive feat. Internet and cell service was spotty at best, and in many areas, non-existent. Mazotas remembers walking through her neighborhood, trying to find a signal to send a single text. Pressley had to walk several miles to find cell service to check on colleagues.
By Monday, all staff were safe and accounted for. Colorectal surgeon Dr. Colin Bird evacuated to Charlotte following the storm, so all of the practice’s incoming calls were forwarded to him so someone with reliable service could answer patients’ immediate medical questions.
Despite the unreliable cell service in Asheville, the surgeons reached out to patients who had just had surgery to check in: Are you OK? What do you need?
Delivering healthcare to Western North Carolina
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Novant Health and Novant Health Foundation supported affected communities by mobilizing emergency care resources, coordinating on-the-ground outreach and providing well-being and mental health services.
What we provided to Western North Carolina:
- 1,000+ community members with care
- 200+ prescriptions
- 900+ vaccines
- 50+ free virtual care visits
- 370+ doctor/clinician visits
- 12,000+ food items
- 120+ team members
- 100 boxes of diapers
- 70 wheelchairs
Some patients needed supplies because delivery services could not get through. The team used their network and access to Novant Health supplies to track needed items down and make deliveries themselves.
The surgeons’ next goal was to go through the list of patients scheduled for upcoming surgeries, and determine: Who still needs surgery now, and who can wait? And what medical facilities can accommodate surgeries?
Finding accurate information proved challenging because the only official communication streams were radio transmissions from Buncombe County officials. Otherwise, “the information was all word of mouth,” Mazotas said.
“Each day we learned a couple more things that we could do to help get patients what they needed,” she recalled. One thing they learned was that the local hospitals would not be scheduling any new surgeries, and it was unclear how long that would go on.
Thankfully, the practice had an ace in the hole: For just under a year, they had been part of Novant Health. While they were still new to the system and learning the workings of a large health care organization, the clinic and Novant Health operational leaders quickly meshed to get services back up for patients.
As soon as she could communicate, Mazotas reached out to Andrea Flynn, system administrative vice president for cancer and surgery, who was then her primary contact person through Novant Health. “Anything we identified as a need, she immediately jumped on trying to make it available,” Mazotas said.
‘They did everything they could to make themselves available.’
Novant Health set up a one-stop phone number so surgeons could call and triage patients to other Novant Health locations. That meant that patients who desperately needed a cancer surgery or another urgent surgical fix were able to be treated without delay.
Novant Health Surgical Partners - Biltmore had their phones routed through Novant Health channels to make sure all patients with questions or issues got the help they needed.
Novant Health also took care of the Surgical Partners - Biltmore staff, bringing them supplies they needed under their new living conditions: nonperishable food, wet wipes, paper towels and bottled water.
In turn, the staff used some of those supplies to create care packages for patients. Awaiting surgery for a serious medical condition or recovering from surgery can be hard under the best of circumstances. These patients were also dealing with the added burden of post-storm survival.
When gas became impossible to find, they stationed a tanker at Biltmore Forest for staff to fill up, allowing them to get to and from the hospital and office to check on patients.
Because each staff member was uniquely affected by the storm, the team had to be flexible. Schools and childcare centers were closed. Some team members had family members who had lost their homes. Some couldn’t get out of their driveways. Even within these constraints, each person put forth a wholehearted effort.
Those who had cell service helped by calling patients. Those who could travel around Asheville found and delivered supplies and volunteered at care centers and the hospital. When another Novant Health office in Asheville got power back before Surgical Partners - Biltmore, Biltmore’s surgeons prepared to see patients at that location, However, just in time, the power was miraculously restored at their normal location so they were able to see patients at their regular office.
“Everybody jumped into action and did what they could to help patients,” Mazotas said.
And she means everyone.
“All the way up, they helped us manage all the logistics so we could focus on other things,” Mazotas said, specifically mentioning Flynn, Novant Health Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Pam Oliver, and Dr. Stan Fuller, the system physician executive for the Novant Health Surgical Institute. “They did everything they could to make themselves available for our team and our patients.”
It’s impossible to name everyone who was instrumental in the post-Helene efforts, but two more names came up a lot: Crystal Norris, lead certified medical assistant at the clinic, and Dr. CJ Atkinson, a physician leader in the region at the time.
Novant Health also set up no-cost mobile clinics, which were adjacent to the county-run community care stations, which included showers, laundry facilities and food pick-up stations that were free to anyone who needed them, and partnered with the American Red Cross to open a shelter. More than anything, that’s what impressed Mazotas about Novant Health’s response: “That showed us that they really cared — not only about supporting us, but supporting our community and the health of the whole region.”
Surgical Partners - Biltmore reopened on Oct. 7, just 10 days after the storm first hit. The office saw six patients on the first day it reopened, and within three weeks, the office was back to its typical 60+ patients a day.
