Idaho Falls public official shares his experience helping with Hurricane Helene aftermath

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) -  People affected by Hurricane Helene are still working to repair damage and replace what they've lost. Local News 8 spoke with Eric Grossarth, Public Information Officer for the City of Idaho Falls, who was on the ground in North Carolina as part of a communications plan.

The plan had public information officers from across the country helping with the hurricane's aftermath.

Grossarth was on a 16-day deployment in North Carolina. He says the amount of damage and loss caused by the hurricane is almost incomprehensible.

Grossarth said “It's definitely something I don't think anybody really could have comprehended here as a level of disaster. Maybe most comparable here would have been the Teton Dam flood, if people remember that years ago.”

Grossarth says he helped people affected by the hurricane by getting valuable information to them. He helped ensure the right people had the right information at the right time so they could make decisions that saved lives and protected property.

He shared how the people affected by the hurricane were doing.

“The people there were so welcoming and they've done an incredible job pulling together to help respond or recover. They have a long ways to go, so we shouldn't forget them as they go through this.”

Grossarth says getting information to the public was important because there was a lot of disinformation that made people scared or confused.