Volunteers at Hickory airport coordinate evacuations in western NC

HICKORY, N.C. — he sound of helicopters coming and going at the Hickory Regional Airport is a sign that help is on the way to Hurricane Helene victims in western North Carolina.

“It’s been a healthy mix of children, families, adults, cancer care center patients, said Lindsey Duch, an Operation Airdrop organizer.

“So, we have water over here. Around this corner, we have food we have people who are actively boxing up to put on airplanes,” said Maria Rutland, a coordinator.

The helicopters are being used to evacuate people, and Matt McSwain helped to put the operation together.

“Once the pilot comes over and picks out a mission profile for their particular, what they are comfortable with, not everybody is comfortable with landing with this injury or this load,” McSwain told Channel 9′s Glenn Counts. “Once they do that, they go back over there and check out.”

Inside the operations center, volunteers manage 50 helicopters and pilots.

The types of choppers are tracked along with their capabilities and are matched with the appropriate missions.

The all-volunteer effort has evacuated at least 300 Helene victims over the past couple of days. Some of the evacuees presented their own unique set of challenges because they were dementia patients.

“It’s a very challenging, difficult situation,” said McSwain. “Some of the dementia patients, some of the elderly patients are very hard to move.”

Initially, the volunteer pilots were paying for their fuel. That tally has been about $60,000 per day. Now donors are helping, so the helicopters can also get generators to flood victims.

“We’ve been building generators for about 2-and-a-half, 3 hours and we’ve done about 25 generators,” said Rodney Sellers, a coordinator.

There is also a call center that has been set up at the airport. On Wednesday, 500 volunteers pitched in to help and they are there to do whatever it takes.

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