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“Entire communities are gone. It’s horrific up there,” says Jeremy White, an Edge Autonomy Program Manager in North Carolina who has witnessed the devastation of Hurricane Helene up close.

Jeremy is part of a small group of volunteer pilots, mostly Veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces, using private planes to deliver crucial supplies to communities in western North Carolina devastated by last week’s historic storm. Operation Airdrop—a Texas-based nonprofit that organizes aviation assets after natural disasters—is one of the primary organization these pilots have partnered with to deliver relief.

After serving in the Special Forces, Jeremy retired from the Army and joined Edge Autonomy. As a contract pilot with Sovereign Aerospace, a USAF Veteran-owned company, he also flies with the All-Veterans Group (AVG) comprised mostly of former Army Golden Knights. AVG is a demonstration parachute team that does flights over high-profile events like Carolina Panthers football games. Jeremy was flying over one of these games hours before they heard their neighbors in the western part of the state were in trouble. For the past week, Jeremy and other aviators associated with Sovereign Aerospace have been allowed to use their airplane to support relief efforts post-Helene.

When Helene made landfall and it became clear it would take days for FEMA, the National Guard, and North Carolina Emergency Management to reach many of the smaller mountain communities outside of Asheville, these Veteran pilots decided to take action.

“There’s no communication in the mountains,” Jeremy explains. “Beginning Saturday, September 28, we started flying to these stranded communities with the intention of parachuting bundles of supplies to local fire chiefs and other emergency responders who don’t have any way to get in touch with the outside world.”

Initially, poor weather conditions made it impossible to airdrop the bundles, but these volunteer pilots still delivered supplies to nearby relief stations.

“There is still a ton of need up there, and a lot of what I’m doing is connecting people. The rain hasn’t let up and there are places where supplies are just sitting there because there’s no way to transport them,” Jeremy explains.

“The terrain is very difficult to navigate; the roads are all gone. We’re continuing to coordinate airdrops into communities west of Asheville that nobody has gotten to yet, where there are hundreds of stranded people who desperately need water and fuel.”

Preparing these communities for federal emergency relief is a major way these pilots are helping out during this ongoing crisis.

“The group of people I’m working with are former military, mostly former Special Operations, who are going into areas the government hasn’t gotten to yet. They secure it and get ready to receive the National Guard when it comes in, then move on to help the next community that needs support.” 

The loss of life and level of destruction are tragic, but Jeremy has been inspired by the generous response of average people who have no background in emergency services.

“There’s a business owner from Hickory who’s been orchestrating relief efforts alongside his daughter,” says Jeremy. “They have no experience in emergency response, but this young woman who has no formal emergency response training has been sourcing supplies, finding helicopters to put them on, and telling them where to go. came in to help give their relief efforts a little more structure, but she’s been managing this all on her cell phone and in her head. She’s running the show – it’s super impressive.”

Edge Autonomy is proud to have Veterans on our team like Jeremy who continue to serve where they’re needed most. Interested in supporting these relief efforts? Please consider donating to Operation Airdrop or Transylvania County Rescue Squad.