Photo provided by Columbus Municipal Airport
COLUMBUS, Ind. — The Columbus Municipal Airport has become a staging ground for a community effort to gather supplies for hard-hit hurricane ravaged North Carolina, by flying supplies to aid groups there.
Airport Director Brian Payne said the effort began Monday and continued today, with supplies such as canned food, toilet paper, paper products, tarps, pet food and more being brought to the airport and then being flown out on small single-engine or twin-engine planes with volunteer pilots.
On Monday, the planes delivered the items to Hickory, North Carolina, but the federal agency FEMA has now taken control of that airport, and planes are now flying from Columbus to hard-hit Asheville, North Carolina.
Payne said the group has connections with a group of helicopter pilots who are delivering the supplies directly to civilians.
The Republic attempted to contact the Citizens Crisis Response Team in Edinburgh, Indiana, but the phone is answered by an answering machine and then hangs up.
Payne said as much as 2,000 pounds of supplies has so far been flown to North Carolina from the Columbus airport and the effort will continue on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Payne said seven planes were loaded with 2,800 pounds of supplies for North Carolina disaster relief.
State Rep. Mike Speedy, R-Indianapolis, said he has used his morning stops at the Columbus Municipal Airport to top off his loads of supplies.
On two trips on two consecutive days, Speedy said he hauled about 2,400 lbs. of supplies with his own plane on behalf of the Civilian Crisis Response Team, Speedy said.
Originally, the lawmaker intended to fly his supplies into an airport near Hickory in western North Carolina. However, that facility has been taken over by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA has ordered that no civilian supply planes be brought in the airport near Hickory in Catawba County, Speedy said.
The suggested alternative was for all contributing pilots to land in Asheville, where a large staging area for Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters has been established, the lawmaker said.
Supplies from the planes are loaded onto the National Guard helicopters, which transports them to the Hickory area for distribution, Speedy said.
I’ve been kind of operating on my own because I don’t want to be hampered by potential bureaucracy,” Speedy said. “This group has done a wonderful job, but there has been a steep learning curve for airlifts.”
This was the first attempt by the Civilian Crisis Response Team to attempt airlifts. Earlier efforts have been done on trucks and buses, he said.
Speedy said he’s going to make one more trip this week, but the exact day has not yet been determined.
On this type of relief effort, pilots like Speedy don’t have the opportunity to see the assistance they have provided be given to the victims. But he does see military and civilian personnel that do nothing but unload aircraft and place relief supplies on either helicopters or trucks.
“I tell you, I have been thanked over a dozen times by people on the ground who are aware of the situation first-hand,” Speedy said. “It’s very encouraging for them to see all the different people coming together to make this type of effort.”
At Tuesday’s Columbus Board of Works meeting, Columbus Mayor Mary Ferdon said, “You’ve probably seen discussion about the planes collecting donations out at Bakalar. It was a crisis response team out of Edinburgh that put this together with Brian Payne, they made it to the news. And so, at city hall, we’re collecting donations until Friday. And so, I think other people in the community are collecting donations.”
Also collecting items locally is Columbus Auto Group locations. Former Columbus Mayor Fred Armstrong said Leo and Miriam Portaluppi wished to assist with the relief effort and the auto group’s marketing department is coordinating donations from employees and from the general public that will continue through Wednesday.
Pickup trucks will be placed in the showrooms of each dealership and employees and members of the public may drop off items from the specific list requested by the organization, and then transported to the airport for delivery to North Carolina.
Items on the list are baby formula, canned pet food, ready to eat food in study packs, portable electronic lanterns, trash bags, toilet paper, plastic silverware, paper plates and plastic tarps of any size.
Items may also be dropped of at the Columbus Municipal Airport terminal on Wednesday.
