As a frontline responder, Tim Zibelin acknowledges that it’s hard to admit when “it’s OK to not be OK.”
Zibelin, an advanced emergency medical technician with Riceville’s Volunteer Fire Department, has witnessed the destruction that Tropical Storm Helene wrought in Western North Carolina nearly two weeks ago.
“The amount of devastation is what really has got to me,” he said Wednesday morning from the fire station off Riceville Road, just east of Asheville.
“I mean, you see people's lives uprooted, their homes destroyed, their livelihoods destroyed, businesses destroyed, and it's just, it's a complete loss,” Zibelin added, trying to find his words. “And it's just — it will, it'll wear you down is what it will do.”