How a climate disaster in North Carolina is causing IV fluid shortages across the country

The nation’s largest producer of IV fluid is in North Carolina. Hurricane Helene caused it to shutter—and no one knows when it will reopen.

Hurricane Helene is now one of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes since 1950, killing at least 235 people as of Tuesday. An unknown number, likely hundreds, are still missing, and more than 250,000 households from Florida to Virginia still don’t have power nearly two weeks after landfall. Recovery efforts could take months, even years, in remote parts of southern Appalachia where the destruction from historic rains and flooding was nearly total.