Meagan Orton is watching her health slip away, drop by drop. The Goose Creek woman with a rare and complicated syndrome needs constant IV infusions to keep her blood pressure from bottoming out, potentially leaving her unconscious and falling to the floor or with a splitting headache and debilitating brain fog. But Hurricane Helene devastated the factory in North Carolina where a majority of IV fluids are manufactured in the U.
S. The Baxter factory is in an odd and inaccessible place where a single bridge allows its shipments out of the plant. That bridge was damaged in the storm.
While the company and federal officials scramble to import and find alternative ways to get the vital bags of fluid, Meagan is down to a handful and is trying to ration what she has. She has orders in with companies from Texas to Illinois to San Diego but no promise of delivery anytime soon. Helene's 50th victim in SC: Greenville man dies after falling off roof while clearing storm debris Baxter's plant is located in McDowell County, N.
C., where the Piedmont and mountains meet. Speaking by phone from the county seat, Marion Mayor Steve Little said Helene was the county's worst disaster in memory.
The rush of debris-filled waters from swollen streams — "it was like shooting a cannon," Little said — washed away residences, including at least one two-story home. Many roads were impassable. Rail lines through the county had the dirt swept from beneath them, leaving tracks suspended in air.
One river.
