Welcome to Family Policy Matters, a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, I'm John Rustin, president of NC Family. And each week on Family Policy Matters, we welcome experts and policy leaders to discuss topics that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our prayer is that this program will help encourage and equip you to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state and nation.
And now here's the host of Family Policy Matters, Tracey Devette Griggs. Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. Hurricane Helene left devastation in its wake for sure, but the disaster also showed an encouraging outpouring of compassion and selflessness that is not always readily apparent in our culture today. Many of us were moved to pray or donate supplies.
So many others are weekly dropping everything and heading to the mountains to do mud outs and reconstruction of homes, despite the freezing conditions for volunteers to operate. Well, two men took their very unique talent and put it to work flying helicopters, taking in supplies and serving on search and rescue missions throughout the North Carolina mountains. Well, those efforts blossomed into a new organization called Operation Helo. Eric Robinson is one of the founders, and we're grateful to have him with us today.
Eric Robinson, welcome to Family Policy Matters. Thank you so much for having me on. All right. So first of all, what inspired you to get involved volunteering for the disaster in the first place? It all kind of started. We have a very good friend, Doug Jackson, who he is the founder of Operation Airdrop, and we've been friends with Doug for a long time.
My co-founder, Matt McSwain, and I have been friends with Doug for a long time. And what Operation Airdrop does is they respond to natural disasters using fixed wing airplanes. He called us. Obviously, this being our backyard, he called us and he asked how they could help.
And we said, hey, look, man, this is unfortunate. It's not an airplane mission. Most of the airports are gone. So this is definitely a helicopter mission. So we, my co-founder and I, are in the aviation industry.
So we put some feelers out to friends and anybody, honestly, that had a helicopter that was willing to come help out. And that's how Operation Helo was born. So honestly, it was it was born out of necessity because there was a lot of devastation. A lot of people were shut off. A lot of people really needed help with basic stuff.
So that it was born out of necessity. Right. So you said you were in the aviation industry. So for those of us out here who know nothing about that, what does that mean? Like, what does somebody do in the aviation industry?
For you example. So we are in kind of the backcountry flying community. We have a company, Acne Aero, that specializes in backcountry airplane suspension. So it's a tight knit community. It's a great community.
Awesome guys. But being in the aviation industry and in the community, you hang out at air shows and stuff like that with people. So you get to know a lot of people, like minded people. So when naturally, whenever we put the call out, there was a great response, just honestly, due to our friendships and the relationships that we built throughout that community. Wow. I think in the business world, they call that networking.
You call it making friends. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about that, because you're excited to help.
Right. But you need to help in the right way. So how do you get connected with the needs so that you know that what you're doing is really meeting those needs? My co-founder and I are both prior military. So when we looked at this, we kind of look at it through military eyes and through a military application. There was not a lot of communication coming out of Western North Carolina. A lot of people were shut off, cell towers were down. So we decided it was necessary for us to first get communication. So we dropped a bunch of our friends from 82nd Airborne, Special Forces 20th SF Group. We dropped them in with Starlinks that were donated by Elon Musk and President Trump. We dropped them in with Starlinks to where we could establish communication. So we, I think when it was all said and done, we did over 500 Starlinks at different LZs, different fire departments, to where we could cover the area, understand what the needs were, to where we could then begin meeting those needs. And obviously we had to forge LZs landing zones. So we did that as well to where we could get aid exactly where it needed to go.
OK, so that's pretty exciting. Tell us about what happened next then once you got those people on the ground established. So then we start communicating, the communication comes in and it's we start hearing the needs, the actual physical real time needs of who's on the ground and what's happening. So there were needs for ex-fills for people to be brought out. So when it was all said and done, we pulled out over 430 people, brought them to safety, had a triage area set up. There was also there was a huge need for medication. So insulin, oxygen, stuff like that, that I didn't think about initially. The reports start coming back that that's a big need. Obviously nonperishable food items and water. Those were huge needs. And another one that simply from a morale perspective, baby wipes. Just so I mean, just imagine if you're shut off and you haven't seen or talked to anybody in five, six days, you don't have water.
You don't have food along with some water and some food to get a baby wipe just to wipe off. Huge morale boost. So, yeah, when those needs started coming in, we were able to meet those in real time and we knew exactly what was going on on the ground due to that communication.
Wow. So there are other organizations either operating there or trying to operate there. So how much communication did you have with those groups? We were and not to get too technical in the aviation industry, but inside the the affected area, kind of the Asheville, Western North Carolina area, they put up a it's called a TFR, a temporary flight restriction. So in order to go inside that area, inside that perimeter, you have to have what's called a squawk code.
So you plug that in on your airplane or your helicopter and it tells everybody around who you are. If you didn't have one of those squawk codes, you couldn't get in. So we were one of the only organizations that had I think we had at the height of the operation, we had 50 squawk codes to where we can go in and out.
So we didn't see a whole lot of there weren't a whole lot of other organizations there simply because they weren't allowed in. There were some government entities there. But at the height of the mission in Hickory, where we were stationed and where we were operating out of, we had some National Guard assets running missions for us.
So it was those. You're listening to Family Policy Matters, a weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. This is just one of the many ways NC Family works to educate and inform citizens about issues that impact faith and family here in North Carolina.
Our vision is to create a state and nation where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive and life is cherished. For more information about NC Family and how you can partner with us in pursuit of this vision, visit our website at ncfamily.org and be sure to sign up to receive our email updates, action alerts and Family North Carolina magazine. You can also follow us on social media at NC Family Policy. That's at NC Family Policy. All right. So now you've decided that there's a need for this going forward, that you guys would like to continue to help in any way that you can.
What is that going to look like for you? Operation Hilo right now is kind of multifaceted, I guess you would say. We have committed to Western North Carolina. Those are our neighbors. We know the needs on the ground. We were part of the immediate response. We transitioned and were part of the temporary housing response. So we knew that there were numerous people in the Western North Carolina mountains that were rendered homeless.
Not only did they lose cars and material things, but they lost actual houses, like entire houses gone, sometimes even family members. So we we knew that we had to meet that need as well. So we started providing temporary travel campers to get people out of tents and out of cars. But then we have kind of satisfied that need. To date, we've gotten over 200 campers into families and gotten people out of tents. So we've satisfied that need for the most part. Now we are transitioning into the permanent rebuild effort.
So we're getting behind people in the area. There are some building supplies and a couple of different building supply companies that we have accounts with to where any of our families can go. And if you've been vetted, you can go there. You can get building supplies and you can start rebuilding your house. So that's one facet of it. The other facet is if there's another natural disaster anywhere, I would say kind of east of the Mississippi, we will be able to deploy Florida, the Gulf Coast.
We'll be able to deploy and provide immediate needs to the population that's affected by any of those natural disasters. Let's talk a little bit about those early days when you were the few that were getting in. What was that like for you?
Was that emotionally difficult? Were you amazed at what you saw? Pictures never do it justice. When you actually go and you physically see for yourself where the flood level was or where the water had reached, and then you look at where the where the water is at the time, it's like it's almost unfathomable to put your mind around just the sheer devastation. I mean, the debris, the destruction.
Yes, there's pictures. And again, it just doesn't do it justice. I say it all the time, but apocalyptic is not being overdramatic. There were I mean, entire towns were wiped away. So it was very, very emotional.
But I tell you, on the other side of it, just to go in and take somebody some food and some water and to give them a hug after they haven't seen anybody for five days and they're kind of hopeless. And that's very impactful. And a lot of tears were shed, happy tears, sad tears, but it was very impactful. And we say it all the time. We hate that we have to do this.
But we're glad we get to if that makes any sense. How physically demanding was it in those early days? I know you guys were mostly flying in, but you were flying in people who were on the ground.
How difficult of a time were they having that? You know, I think you run on adrenaline and, you know, when it's all said and done and you finally lay down at night, yeah, you're wiped out, you're exhausted. But that sense of duty is always there. So that's what fuels you. I mean, there was days that we would look up, it's five o'clock.
Oh, man, I hadn't even eaten anything today. But you're still you're just running on that adrenaline. And you know that these people are counting on you sometimes to live. So, yes, physically demanding.
But I would say that God's hand was all over us and we had supernatural strength for a long time. Oh, yeah. So can you talk to us? Because at the Family Policy Council here in North Carolina, we just love these stories of somewhat ordinary. It's hard to call you ordinary, but ordinary citizens who see a need and decide they're going to step up.
So what was that like for you? And do you feel like people can see what you did and say, I can take my special unique talents and put it to work in some way? I would hope so. We are we are normal people. We're your neighbors. We saw a need. We stepped up. But, you know, we learned more than anything that people want to help.
They just sometimes need an avenue. So, you know, we're a faith based organization and me personally, I've been through experiencing God quite a few times. And, you know, one of the big principles in there is see where God's at work and this is just join him.
So I think it's, you know, when people want to help, they're like, man, I don't know how. Just when you see an organization like Operation Helo or Samaritan's Purse or, you know, any of those bigger organizations, God's at work there. And there's always a chance to plug in. I mean, we needed volunteers the whole time we were in Hickory and still do. So there's always an opportunity.
But again, we're just normal people just kind of putting our yes on the table. As your organization has progressed, then are you starting you mentioned Samaritan's Purse? I know the North Carolina Baptists are always very involved in some of these disaster relief situations. But what about government entities?
Are you seeing a collaboration between all of these different groups that you find to be inspiring? Or is there more work that's needed there? I think there's a lot of work that's needed. Honestly, you know, the government, there's a lot of constraints, a lot of red tape.
So I don't fault the government for maybe their lack of response or their response not being so rapid. For us, we are a small nonprofit. We kind of can do whatever we want. But we are still trying to figure out how to kind of bridge gaps between different organizations to where efforts aren't being duplicated. We've made inroads there.
We were on a call this morning with quite a few different organizations operating in western North Carolina and everybody kind of telling everybody else what the right hand is doing and what the left hand is doing. So I think there's some work that needs to be done there. But we're getting there. OK, well, I know you said you still need volunteers. And of course, a new nonprofit organization always needs people to give money or get involved in some way. So tell us how people can get involved and learn more about Operation Hilo. Operation Hilo dot org.
That's where everything is housed. That's our Web site. We also do have social media.
Facebook is Operation Hilo. We have always been very transparent. We do a lot of videos. We want people to know where their money is going, how their money is impacting people, how their money is changing lives.
Yes. I mean, this is this is funded by donations and it's five, 10, 15 dollar donations. So fortunately, we've been extremely blessed and we are still like we said, we're going to continue to help until we can't help anymore.
So, yeah, but it's all funded off of donations. All right. Well, what a pleasure. Thank you for your good work. Eric Robinson, thanks for being with us today on Family Policy Matters. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review. To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our Web site at NC Family dot org. That's NC Family dot o r g. And check us out on social media at NC Family Policy. Thanks and may God bless you and your family.
