Morning Wire
Operation Helo: How Civilians Led Relief After Hurricane Helene | 12.26.24
Thu, 26 Dec 2024
A civilian-led helicopter rescue mission after Hurricane Helene mobilized over 100 pilots from across the country, outpacing government efforts to deliver aid, perform rescues, and provide temporary housing for devastated communities. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.https://operationhelo.org/donateGood Ranchers: Visit GoodRanchers.com and use code WIRE today. Good Ranchers: American meat delivered.Netsuite: And now get $250 when you join Ramp. Just go to ramp dot com slash WIRE. That’s Ramp dot com slash WIRE.
Chapter 1: What was Operation Helo's mission after Hurricane Helene?
In the wake of Hurricane Helene, a group of civilians mounted an unprecedented helicopter rescue mission that ended up eclipsing the government efforts in the region. To be honest, we expected to get, what, 10, 15 helicopters? I expected five.
In this episode, we talk to the co-founder of the effort about how the mission was pulled off, as well as their ongoing efforts.
We had over 100 helicopters. We started running missions Monday morning, getting aid and medicine, doing well checks, and even eggs fills.
Chapter 2: How many helicopters participated in the rescue effort?
I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's December 26th, and this is a special edition of Morning Wire.
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Joining us to discuss the harrowing rescue mission is Operation Hilo co-founder Eric Robertson. Eric, thanks so much for coming on.
Absolutely. I appreciate you having us.
So tell us about this mission that you and some colleagues took on to help people in North Carolina.
Yeah, so initially after Hurricane Helene, we're probably, I would say, two hours east of that area. We heard about the devastation coming out of the mountains. So a friend of ours, Doug Jackson from Operation Airdrop, who uses fixed-wing airplanes to respond to natural disasters, he called up and said, hey, how can we help? So they came here to North Carolina.
We all kind of met as a group and determined that Due to the area of operation, airplanes were not going to be effective for that mission. So we put the call out. We are in the aviation industry. We put the call out to a bunch of friends asking for helicopters to where we could go into the challenging LZs, drop off aid, pick up people, do search and rescue, that type thing.
So that was Sunday after the storm. Monday morning, we started flying aid missions online. And again, search and rescue wellness checks. We thought that we would have maybe 10 helicopters, 15 helicopters. When it was all said and done, we had 100 helicopters running missions for a two-week span. So that's kind of how we came to be. That's how Operation Hilo started.
It was the response to get aid, search and rescue, do wellness checks in the area after Hurricane Helene.
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Chapter 3: Who were the pilots behind the Operation Helo mission?
There was one that really stood out to me, and it really speaks to the devastation in the area. This was a thousand-year storm, and there was two actually personal friends that flew into an area in Burnsville, landed on the road, and there was an elderly couple sitting in front of a store. That store, you could see on the second level where the watermark was. So it was, again, that water was up...
past the second level of that store. That store had been in the family for over 100 years. They were sitting out in front of the store, and my buddy Brad Womble, he approached them and said, hey guys, what do you need? Can we get you out of here? Can we evacuate you? They said that they could not, they weren't leaving, that they're grandson was still stuck in the rafters. He had obviously passed.
He had drowned in the flood and they were standing guard. They said that we're not leaving until he leaves. So that's not exactly a rescue mission, but that kind of speaks to what we were dealing with in the first week or two after the storm.
Wow. It seems like it would be very challenging to actually search for people from the air. How would you find and identify the people who needed help?
There is a bunch of different ways that we would go about doing search and rescue. Obviously, oftentimes be people standing outside. They would be waving. Other times it would be that someone hasn't spoken to or seen or heard their loved one in a week or so. So we would go in and check on them.
And at that point, you know, they would most likely want to come with us just because we could get them to safety. We could get them out of the cold. We could get them food, shelter, water. and all that. We evacuated a nursing home and it had 159 elderly people in it. So that's, you know, we get the call that they have no power, they have no water, they've been stuck in there for six days.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did the team face during rescues?
So we actually grabbed a National Guard asset, a Chinook, and took that in and grabbed the 159 people over a couple trips. So it varies in how we were able to get the people out. But at the end of the day, we ended up rescuing or exfilling 439 people throughout the course of the mission.
Wow. Have you stayed in touch with some of these pilots about perhaps being ready for a future storm, or was this just a one-off project?
So we learned throughout the evolution of the mission there in Hickory while we were flying that we just had such amazing volunteers. Ashley DeHaan, who ran a lot of our vetting and processing. Tommy Daniel, who did a lot of the technology. And when we had all these people that came together, we learned that we were really good at it.
Like I said, the FAA came in and each time I think they were going to try to shut us down, but they saw how safe we were and that we had tabs on all of our assets, both on the ground and in the air in real time. So moving forward, yes, we do have a database. We do have a plan to have vetted pilots to where we can respond going forward to any natural disaster.
We also learned that, you know, being a private organization, we can be nimble. We can respond to needs immediately. very quickly, like in the days after the storm. Once the roads started opening up and the need for helicopters kind of went away, we pivoted and we then began to provide campers for people that had been displaced throughout the flood and that had lost everything.
So that's a testament to us being able to be nimble and just respond to the needs of the people.
Well, you're obviously making a huge difference. Here's just one of hundreds of families reacting to their new camper.
Oh, wow. Look at that. Oh, wow. Look at that. That's Natasha. She's a little earth angel from Operation Hilo. Thank you, Operation Hilo. Woo! Woo!
Tell me a little more about the campers. How many are deployed now and where'd they come from and how long have they been in use?
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Chapter 5: What notable rescues occurred during Operation Helo?
Chapter 6: How did the National Guard and FEMA contribute?
It was an eclectic mix. You have people that use their helicopters on their ranch to herd cattle. You had prior military guys. You had guys that just had their helicopter for fun. When we were running these missions, and it's a testament to the aviators, we didn't have a single safety incident at all with over 4,000 missions that we ran. So they were great aviators that answered the call.
That's incredible. Now tell us about some of the really notable rescues. I'm very ignorant about helicopters, so it's hard for me to even imagine. Do you land on someone's property to bring them things or how does it work?
So initially we had to forge new landing zones. So we would take prior military, also some military special forces guys, 82nd guys that were simply there on leave volunteering. We would drop them in and they would forge landing zones for us and they would go out and kind of scout the area. So once we had that done, we understood where the aid needed to go.
So yeah, sometimes it would be, we would land directly on someone's property. If we would get a call into the call center, for example,
of somebody looking for aunt nancy and hadn't talked to aunt nancy in seven days they would give us her address we would turn it into coordinates that we could hand our pilots we would scout the landing zone make sure it was accessible drop in make sure aunt nancy was okay and and get her some food and relief and if she wanted to come out we'd take her out wow
There was one that really stood out to me, and it really speaks to the devastation in the area. This was a thousand-year storm, and there was two actually personal friends that flew into an area in Burnsville, landed on the road, and there was an elderly couple sitting in front of a store. That store, you could see on the second level where the watermark was. So it was, again, that water was up...
past the second level of that store. That store had been in the family for over 100 years. They were sitting out in front of the store, and my buddy Brad Womble, he approached them and said, hey guys, what do you need? Can we get you out of here? Can we evacuate you? They said that they could not, they weren't leaving, that they're grandson was still stuck in the rafters. He had obviously passed.
He had drowned in the flood and they were standing guard. They said that we're not leaving until he leaves. So that's not exactly a rescue mission, but that kind of speaks to what we were dealing with in the first week or two after the storm.
Wow. It seems like it would be very challenging to actually search for people from the air. How would you find and identify the people who needed help?
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Chapter 7: What was the response to the devastation in the affected areas?
Chapter 8: How did the community come together for the rescue efforts?
How about the rebuilding? Have they made even a dent or is it still just complete devastation?
It is complete devastation still. I think they just yesterday got the building codes lifted to where people can start to possibly live in tiny houses or sheds. A lot of those were not passing code. So that's why we felt like the campers were the best option for temporary shelter. But now that the camper mission is kind of winding down, we're now pivoting again, seeing what's next.
And our next evolution, I guess you'd say, is to now start supplying building materials to where we can be a part of the long-term permanent build-back effort.
Now, do you have a 501c3 that you're collecting donations to?
We do. It's Operation Hilo Incorporated. We are a 501c3. Operationhilo.org is where people can go. But yep, we are officially a 501c3.
All right, well, thank you so much for coming on and telling us about this amazing mission.
Thank you, guys.
That was Eric Robertson, founder of Operation Hilo, and this has been a special edition of Morning Wire.
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