Desperate residents of Hurricane Helene-ravaged Western North Carolina are relying on home-grown rescue efforts instead of waiting for the Biden-Harris administration’s financially depleted FEMA to get its act together.
Not content to hold out hope for help some fear might not arrive in time, a handful of grassroots rescue operations have sprung up to render assistance by air, land and even on four legs.
With hundreds more missing in the remote, unforgiving terrain and communication services damaged or nonexistent, the search for survivors grows more dire with each passing hour.
Local airports like City of Statesville Regional Airport and Hickory Regional Airport have transformed themselves into donation drop-off and delivery zones, courtesy of a few dozen volunteers lending their time, critical supplies and in some cases, their planes to the rescue effort.
Roadways near the airports this week were jammed with donors and volunteers, who brought car and truckloads of everything from food and medicine to fuel and camping supplies. The donations were then collected and loaded into small, privately owned airplanes for delivery to the hardest-hit regions of the state.
“The amount of pilots coming in and out of Statesville today is amazing. Because of their generosity, our community is saving lives. We were able to get supplies to a remote area today for at least 100 people who had no contact with anyone until yesterday,” a volunteer posted Thursday on the Facebook page of what’s been dubbed the Hurricane Helene Airlift Relief.
In the days following the historic storm, the skies above Western North Carolina echoed with the whirring of helicopters, many of them captained by private pilots looking to lend a hand to their fellow Tar Heels.
Garrett Mitchell, a pilot and YouTuber known as Cleetus McFarland, choppered out to a remote area after seeing a desperate mother’s cry for help on Facebook.
“We are in a serious situation right now … My child is almost out of formula and we have a woman on oxygen here. We need to get out bad,” she wrote in the post.
After meeting on the ground with rescue personnel, Mitchell headed their way and picked up the two stranded parents and their baby, whom he flew to safety, Vertical magazine reported.
“The true power of social media,” Mitchell wrote. “Let this be an example of a post that helped someone in need.”
Even outside of Asheville, which suffered some of the worst of the flooding in North Carolina, flyboys and girls from around the country showed up in force to do whatever they could.
Volunteer group Operation Airdrop flew a reported 37 private helicopters to assist with rescue efforts in the rural high country.
“We just kind of organized a private helicopter army to go in and survey the damage and extract people and take supplies and create landing zones,” volunteer pilot Matt McSwain told WCNC Charlotte.
“We’ve had people from Texas to Maine, all the way to the East Coast just show up and [say], ‘How do we help?’ ”
Back on the ground, mules from Mountain Mule Packer Ranch trudged their way through otherwise impassable roadways, toting saddlebags loaded up with medicine, first aid and other much-needed supplies to different parts of the state.
“Busy morning as we loaded lots of equipment, supplies, and MULES, to leave for WNC! Please know that we appreciate EVERY kind word, gesture of support, and all that are partnering with us to HELP all that we can!” the ranch wrote wrote on Facebook.
As of Thursday afternoon, at least 94 people have lost their lives in the mountainous region of the state, nearly half of the storm’s recorded death toll so far, authorities said.
Helene is the third-deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland US in more than half a century, behind only Hurricane Katrine in 2005 and Hurricane Camille in 1969, according to Fox Weather.
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