ITS manager swoops in to save Helene victims
Helicopter rescue specialist Matthew Mauzy participated in the state’s largest rescue operation in a decade.
The night after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina, Matthew Mauzy was in a helicopter flying over the mountains. Even wearing night vision goggles, Mauzy strained to see in the dark. The sloped terrain below him made it harder to see the ground. But Mauzy is no stranger to crises.
As the emergency response technology manager for UNC Information Technology Services, Mauzy is responsible for the IT behind the Alert Carolina system. When students, faculty and staff receive notifications about situations on campus, it’s Mauzy’s work that makes it possible. Mauzy provides IT solutions to all sorts of University health, safety and emergency efforts, including for the pandemic response and the testing for lead in campus drinking water.
He has managed and contributed to such projects as migrating WordPress to the cloud, rolling out ServiceNow and moving ITS teams to other buildings. He helps with crisis communications and leads the ITS change approval board.
But the emergency expertise that took him to western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene was his role as chief of the South Orange Rescue Squad, an all-volunteer emergency response organization that serves Orange County. He’s also the lead rescue technician for the eastern portion of the North Carolina Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team.
Largest rescue operation in a decade
NCHART is a highly specialized team of N.C. National Guard and State Highway Patrol aircraft matched with N.C. Emergency Management and local first responders like Mauzy. When disaster strikes, NCHART responds immediately to rescue people.
NCHART performed air rescue operations in western North Carolina for about 10 days, rescuing nearly 600 people in the largest operation NCHART has conducted in the past decade.
Starting at first light the morning after Helene hit, Mauzy and his team worked with helicopter rescue programs from other states to load and evacuate aircraft crowded with individuals who were cut off by destroyed bridges and roads as well as making high-priority critical rescues.
“It’s not uncommon to do rescues from picking people off of rooftops or out of trees or on tops of cars that have become stranded in water,” Mauzy said. “That’s really the focus of the NCHART program: that air rescue capability where ground-based teams or boat-based teams can’t get to those individuals.”
A natural rescuer
Mauzy joined South Orange Rescue Squad 29 years ago when he was an undergraduate student at Carolina. Growing up, he was a Boy Scout who loved the outdoors. His interest in outdoor sports like kayaking and climbing led him to technical emergency response as an adult. Today, Mauzy is one of about 25 helicopter rescue specialists in North Carolina.
In 2017, the University recognized Mauzy with a public service award for his work responding to Hurricane Matthew as part of NCHART. For Helene-related rescues, NCHART received awards from two aircraft manufacturers, the Rescue award from Sikorsky and the Lakota Valor Award from Airbus.
Now efforts in Western North Carolina have entered the recovery phase. Though his official role is over, Mauzy imagines he’ll volunteer in another capacity to help the region. Meanwhile, the ITS employee keeps people safe on campus and beyond.