#138 Aerial Recovery - The Hurricane Helene Disaster
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Charlie Kiba, Jonathan Howard, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. So you guys kind of popped up on my radar. We've been getting blown up with messages wanting us to cover, you know, what's been going on with Hurricane Helene up in North Carolina and East Tennessee. And John, we saw your video go viral and we got connected through to you, Charlie, through Mark Turner, who's a good friend of mine. And so...

There's been all kinds of rumors going on in the news. I don't think anybody really knows what to believe.

I'm not really one to believe mainstream media anymore, but look, you guys have been on the ground there. And so I just want to, I just kind of want to cut right to the chase on what you guys are seeing down there. If any of these rumors are true about what we're hearing on, you know, from other people on the ground, as far as blocking aid and, and what's actually going on. And then, and then I'd like to wrap it up with, you know, what,

what's the solution and what do you guys need and what can people do? And so I'm gonna give you guys a quick introduction here.

Charlie Kebaugh, you are the Chief Development Officer at Aerial Recovery, which is a Nashville-based nonprofit organization dedicated to providing comprehensive healing to veterans and first responders. At Aerial Recovery, you empower these individuals with a new mission to respond to disasters and to combat human trafficking on a global scale. Aerial Recovery's mission is to save lives and to stop evil. Prior to Aerial Recovery, you served in the Air Force Special Warfare

for 10 years and was a JTAC for 2nd Ranger Battalion in the early days after 9/11. After leaving service in 2005, you established yourself as a business growth expert, helping two companies land on the prestigious Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies in the US five years in a row. You're the founder

of the Vidar Group, a service-disabled veteran-owned small business service provider that provides training to classified operators of the MQ-9 Reaper.

Jonathan Howard, you are a Master Sergeant in the Florida State Guard Special Missions Unit created by Governor DeSantis and are currently the Impact Operations Lead at Aerial Recovery. You are also a former Combat Controller, CCT. In addition to your military service, you're a successful businessman. You have sold four real estate companies and own a title company across Florida.

You are the principal broker for the entire state of Florida for Avance, a national vacation management brokerage. You own a successful lawn care company and build luxury homes in Florida. Last but not least, your happiness and passion is for bird photography.

and you sell all of your prints for military charity. You are both here today to share firsthand what you're seeing take place in North Carolina, and more specifically, what the media is not saying. So where do we start? How did you guys get involved in this? - So we were actually in Florida when the storm hit. We pre-positioned in Tallahassee.

Our organization linked up with John's Florida State Guard folks. We rode the storm out in a parking garage and then quickly moved into Perry, Florida, and then Steinhatchee. - What were you guys seeing there? - A pretty rundown, you know, a town of not very well-built structures. So you know no one had insurance. You know everything they have is gone with that storm.

We worked hand in hand with the local law enforcement, the firefighters. At one point we were leapfrogging the firefighters to clear the road to get from Perry to Steenhatchee. It was a great operation down there in the fact that everybody worked very, very well together. Information was shared, resources were shared. You know, we were working hand in hand with the officials there. - Was FEMA down there?

Not yet. I think I heard they were going to come like three days later or something like that. But down there, there was no red tape. And for our unit, the SMU, that was actually our very first mission to be activated on. And DeSantis and all the floor leadership were like, we don't really know what you guys do as operators. Just do whatever you do. And that's what we did. We have a great commander and former pararescue guy. And he was like, we're going to go do what others can't do. And we're going to find work and get after it.

So the main mission to get down there was just clearing trees. I think my team alone, we cleared about 46 miles of road. Wow. Just in about a five-hour period, just chainsaws, just pushing through to Perry. And then we basically hit multiple roads, linked up with aerial recovery. I should say this was actually the first time me and Charlie actually met in person and worked together. No kidding. We knew each other. We talked on the phone and stuff. We live in the same area. We're always trying to link up together, but we're just busy. So our teams worked together, and then we just started pushing in.

Not as bad as what we have seen in North Carolina, just because of our response with the state of Florida and the resources. No one was trying to take command and control because we had command and control established. So no one was fighting for it. - Interesting. - So law enforcement, Coast Guard, everyone knew their role. No one was like, "I'm the leader here." And we were able all to work together. And like, even with Ariel, we were able to work with them and just put the boats in the water and go look for people. 'Cause the water level in Stein Hatch was high.

When we got there at first light, it was probably what, at least chest deep in most places of water. So we were either going out by foot or we're going by boat. But you can see the water line on some of these houses. It was like 11 feet. It was really, really high. And the National Guard folks were there. They were. Absolutely. And God bless them. They're doing their best. They're just not trained. They're not trained. They're not equipped. So we actually had to pull one of their LMTVs out of the floodwaters.

Wow. What a Chevy. Yeah, they had no equipment. They're there doing their best, but ill-prepared for...

- Is the special missions unit, is that a new? - Brand new. - That's brand new? When did that get established? - This year. - January? - Pretty much this year. So they started the state guard about two years ago and then DeSantis, Governor DeSantis basically won his own like JSOC unit for the state.

And then we did the first selection class last October, and then the last class was in January. So it literally just got put together. - Interesting. - We were actually doing our weapon qualifications the week of the hurricane. So we were rushing all of our weapons qualifications. That way we could carry in the state and get deputized. And then as we were doing that, we were mission prepping for the hurricane. And that was our very first mission to show our capabilities, which was great 'cause we were able to do that.

- So is this all comprised of special operations guys or former military? - Yeah, all former operators or very unique backgrounds like canine handlers, stuff like that. We have one guy who was like a fire captain. So he comes in very handy for what we're doing, like emergency missions. - Yeah.

He's also built like a Viking, so his physical capability is great. Nice. But pretty much everyone's either former SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers, Pararescue, or Combat Controllers. EOD as well. Man, I hope we stand that up here in Tennessee. Yeah, no, I think most states are going to follow what we're doing. And, I mean, it's great. We even have our own fixed wing, rotary wing. DeSantis is just going full-blown with it. Interesting. We'll have to reach out to the...

to Bill Lee, the governor of Tennessee. So what got you guys up north from Florida? How did you wind up in North Carolina? So John shared his position with me on his cell phone, which was a mistake. Right, so now I'm tracking him. So I saw that he had made his way home, and our team heard about the devastation happening in North Carolina, and we set a team up there. So I reached out to John. I said, hey, if you're home, let's roll up there. And so he said, let's do it. So we jumped in his private plane,

flew up to Rutherford County Airport and landed there and just kind of did the soft thing once we got there, which was let's try to figure out our next move and get creative. So we started knocking on the doors of the helicopters as they landed.

Hey, let's go do some rescues. Hey, let's go do some work. Literally. No kidding. So you guys literally just flew out here with the plant? 100%. You guys both flew out here with the plant of just, hey, let's just get on the ground and figure it out. As we were driving to the airport to get in the plane, I got a text from our commander, and they're like, hey, we're being activated from North Carolina. And I was like, no kidding. I'm going there right now with aerial recovery. So they're like, perfect. Go there, get intel. Because there wasn't really any kind of intel available.

Like, nothing was being shared. It seemed like no one really knew what was going on. It just, people were trapped in mudslides and flood. So, as you said, once we landed in Rutherford, we would just go up to helicopters and we'd be like, hey, can we get some work in with you? Like, we just need to get up in the air and see what's going on. And that's how we...

My wife actually said it when we were at dinner that night, but I think an angel actually put us in contact with this guy that had the helicopter. Because we were there trying to find helicopters, and this random guy came up to us, started talking to us that no one knew and no one has ever seen again, and just completely vanished from the earth. But he went up to this guy that owned the helicopter, and he was like, hey, I got these two guys over here. They need to get a ride in and start doing some work.

And then he came over to us and was like, "Hey, I heard you guys need a helicopter ride." And this guy, now he's our best friend. He's amazing. He had his own private Bell 407 helicopter, which holds seven people.

And he was like, yeah, I can take you guys up. And that's what we did all of our work in the entire week. No kidding. He paid all out of pocket. I mean, he was paying for the private pilot to fly it. He was paying for all the fuel out of pocket. I mean, I think he was spending like $7,000 to $9,000 a day. Wow. Yeah, just like in fuel on the pilot. Wow. Zeb Hadley, National Coatings out of Wilmington, North Carolina.

And Mark Roseman was our pilot. - Yeah. - Amazing. - Yeah. Like without those two, we couldn't have done what we did. - So I saw a video of you, I believe it went viral about some of the frustrations you were seeing on the ground and

And it sounded like, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounded like different government organizations were trying to take credit for saving an 11-day-old baby that you gentlemen actually saved. So what is it? I'm going to play that video right now. Overlay it on the episode.

I really don't want to make this video, but it is literally a matter of life and death for the people of North Carolina. So my name is Jonathan Howard. I'm a member of the Florida State Guard Special Missions Unit. I'm also up here with Aerial Recovery, a nonprofit. I came up here on Sunday with Aerial Recovery before we even got activated. We flew up here and then we got activated, which is great. I have my team up here working as well.

Here's the problem. I'm going to tell you everything that's happening from the ground, what I'm actually seeing, because what they're telling you is complete bullshit on the news and these politicians don't have a fucking clue and they're lying. And I'll say this now, I'll say it at the end of the video. The only thing I need from this video is helicopters.

If I have helicopters, I can save lives. Without helicopters, I can't reach these people. It doesn't matter how many chainsaws and trucks I got. I can't get to them. They're 10 miles in, 20 miles, 40 miles in the mountains. There's no way to get with them or even communicate with them. I am literally flying around in a civilian helicopter looking for SOS messages carved in the mud or paint on the ground, and we're dropping down and saving them.

What got me fired up about this was yesterday, me and my team did the rescue of that 11-day-old baby. And all these government officials and social media, they're showing that video, that pictures and video of that rescue and claiming that, like, they have some, like, government help with that. And, I mean, it...

Even USA, I think it was USA Today wrote an article about it saying it was a Florida National Guard that went and got it like with a helicopter. No, it was me, my buddy Charlie and a civilian named Zeb with his own personal helicopter out of Wilmington, North Carolina. Like without that civilian, that baby would be dead. And the old lady we went and rescued after that, she'd be dead too because she had one day left of oxygen. No one was going to go get them.

I will tell you, when we go up in the air, I probably see 40 civilian helicopters. I might see two Blackhawks, National Guard, military, whatever they are. That's it. No one's out there doing rescues. I have my entire team up here from Florida right now, and they have no ability to go rescue these people other than what they can drive to. The people that are in dire need, they're out in the mountains. They are completely cut off. Now, I will say, I spoke to

My congresswoman down in Florida, and she's a badass, and she made a bunch of phone calls, and now we got two contracted 60s coming up here tomorrow, which is great. I love that, but I still don't understand why we don't have more helicopters. We'll get a lot of work done with that, but there's no military. No one's doing nothing. It blows my mind.

And they're not even allowing people to see what's really going on. One of our friends yesterday, they were actually escorting CNN down a late war and they wouldn't even let CNN, the sheriff department would not let them go videotape the bad areas of how destructive it is. I don't know why they don't want to show you all that, but I mean, it is bad. I should also say when I flew here on Sunday, they actually stopped us from going in the sheriff department. And it was because of

A bunch of politics that they were claiming was a speaker of the House of North Carolina that was preventing us from even going in and trying to kick us out, which I have clarified today with North Carolina politicians that reached out to me. Good on them. And they were like, that's complete bullshit. Speaker of the House has nothing. He wants you guys there. But this is a kind of political BS.

that is happening here right now. Like everyone's trying to be in charge without taking any type of action. Nobody wants to coordinate with anybody. Everybody wants to pretend like they're being the hero while these people are literally fucking dying in the mountains. And these people, like I'm saying, these people are limited medication. They're running out of oxygen and there's no one going to get them.

The most effective way I have found to go find these people is by getting in a helicopter and flying down the rivers and roads and looking for SOS messages or people waving us down. And then we drop down and get them. We have all these people here. We have law enforcement. We have state guard, national guard. They have no way to go get these people. Yesterday when I was at the Asheville airport refueling, which by the way, the civilian is paying all this out of his own pocket. He's not even looking for a reimbursement. I think we did four refuelings yesterday.

And that was like just in half a day's work. We're in Nashville and I saw two Air Force helicopter 60s. And I knew there were PJs just looking at them. And I went up to him like, hey, guys, like, what are y'all doing? And like, this is what you need to be doing. This is this how I'm finding people. And they're like, we can't go. We're waiting on Title 10 orders.

And I'm like, what? They just, they can't get any authority. There's military helicopters all over here sitting on the ground and they can't do nothing. Even my JSOC boys in Fayetteville, they can't get orders to come out here. It is just the most disgusting thing. And they're killing these people. And I don't know why they're doing it. I don't know what kind of conspiracy. I've heard so many things, whatever you want to come up with, but they are literally allowing these people to fucking die in the mountains right now because we can't get helicopters.

They got money for everything else in the fucking world right now. But if they could just get us helicopters, we could fly out there and rescue these people. So I hope this video goes viral. I hope these politicians get fired. I hope people get pissed off. They'll probably kick me out of the state of North Carolina for doing this. But you know what? I don't care because if I can save one more life for it, it's fucking worth it to me. Yeah. So who got that mission? So we got that lead from Save Our Allies. That's right.

Okay. I'm sure you're familiar with those guys. Yeah, that's Chad Robachoff's guys. That's right. So we're in contact with those guys. Sean actually sent us the mission from Save Our Allies. And it actually said a one-year-old baby, life or death situation. So we jumped in the helicopter. We were in Rutherford County Airport, which is about 15 minutes away. Okay.

The notice had the phone number on it, so I was able to call the grandma, Lisa, get her on the phone, find out if the request was still active, because by this time we'd already been on multiple missions that were dry holes. And so spoke to Lisa on the phone. She gave us the situation. Meanwhile, John's calling his counterparts on the ground and was able to get a PGA there within about five minutes.

So again, you talk about the God moment of the angel connecting us there at the airport. His team just happened to be- Same town. In the same town, at the same time, five minutes away. Everything worked out the way it should have. Like, actually, they were flying in with the helicopter to come grab me and him at the Rutherford Airport. And the people that run the airport, awesome. I forgot the dad's name, but- Devin. Devin and his son, Tristan. His son's 13. He's been helping us out so much. His dad was in the fuel truck.

And I wanted to hot refuel the helicopter because like I said, the message we got is said life or death.

And so that was basically all the intel we had on it. So I asked his son, Tristan, I was like, hey, can you radio your dad? Can you do a hot refuel? He was like, I don't think he's allowed to, but let me see. So his dad came over and he was like, yeah, we can't hot refuel. That's not allowed to do it. And I was like, I have to get this helicopter hot refueled. And he was like, what's the situation? I was like, this one-year-old baby's going to die. And he was like, done. And he literally just backed up his fuel truck and just started refueling the helicopter and

Me and Charlie got in it as I was coordinating with my PJ Paul on the ground. And then I sent him the address. And then like two minutes later, he's calling me. He's like, I'm here. And I was like, how are you there that quick? And he was like, I was here, like literally in the neighborhood, just randomly. Which on the map, when we were looking at it, all the roads were cut off to it. The updated maps were saying it was completely just cut from the rivers. So I don't know how he was even there, but he was able to stabilize the baby, get it on oxygen and just get in the vital stable and

So as we're flying in, the State Guard SMU guys were there. They started, the PJs started making an HLZ. We found a field. I'm looking at imagery on my phone. Like, we can land there, but, I mean, there's power lines all around. And as we're coming in there, I mean, Mark Roseman, our awesome pilot, I mean, this isn't what he does. I mean, he flies, you know, Gulfstreams around the world. And he's, like, putting it down in the field for the very first time in the middle of the field. You have a fixed-wing pilot pilot.

flying a rotary ring aircraft. He's also a writer. He's a writer. Oh, I was like, oh my God. This guy had, I think he said over 22,000 flight hours. Wow. So very, very, very experienced. And he'd been flying helicopters all over, but he's not used to doing like a 160th mission. You know, he's not dropping down in the fields and landing on rooftops. So he dropped down in that field and we had a bunch of our SMU guys there with the baby. My buddy Byron come running out with the little,

little baby crib or holder, oxygen. - Car seat. - Car seat, yeah. And we basically just loaded them into the helicopter, took off and we flew right to Mission Hospital in Asheville. - At the same time, we had to communicate with the hospitals, let them know we were coming. We found the radio frequency, our aircraft radio was not compatible.

So we had a guy from the rear on our team actually make a phone call to the hospital, let them know that we were coming, have the doctors and nurses on standby on the rooftop waiting for us. - Wow. - So as we were coming to that rooftop, Mark was like, "Find me a place on the ground." I was spotting in the front seat looking for an HLZ. And there was two helicopters parked in the HLZ, so we couldn't land on the ground. And there was one on top of the roof. And it was a little bit windy. I say it was very windy, a little bit of rain.

And he was like, I was like, "Mark, the only place he can go is on that roof." I was like, "It's pretty big. Like, you should be able to put it down." He goes, "I've never landed on a roof."

And I was looking at the windsock up there and it was a direct crosswind. And that crosswind was like the top of the building for the hospital. So he was kind of nervous about it. I was like, you just got to get it down. And as we were coming in about 10 feet above, the winds were just like, I mean, it was pushing us. Like it was real, real strong. But he got down, me and Charlie hopped out with the baby, grandma, mom, rushed them inside and they had a full staff there. I mean, they had probably, I think two doctors, three nurses. - Nice. - And they just grabbed that baby and took it.

And then we actually went immediately out to another mission. But a few days later, they got a hold to Charlie. They sent us photos of the baby and the mom. And so the baby was alive. And then at some point, we're going to go visit them and just kind of like follow up with them and stuff. Man, that's amazing. Yeah. I'm not a very big emotional guy. But like my emotions were like running very high in that mission. And then like once we actually got that baby in that doctor's hand, like I actually like wanted to cry. Like I just never –

Like, I just, it was hard to describe, but, like, it just, it was, I don't know, it was just tugging on my heart. Man, that is, you guys are fucking awesome. Yeah. But, yeah, at the time we didn't know it, but it was an 11-day-old premature baby with brittle bone disease, low iron, and something else that it had already been, like, diagnosed with. Do you know the baby's name? Mason. Mason. Yeah. Man, I love hearing that, man. Yeah. You guys are a godsend.

What government organizations are taking credit for your guys' work? It was some sort of, again, the daily updates that the guard folks were putting out. Because I actually reached out to the author of the article in USA Today.

Like, you write something bad, I will hunt you down and send you a nasty email. I learned that from my mom. They were saying it was like North Carolina National Guard. Nothing, not trying to discredit them. Those guys are doing their part. But like in the video, you can clearly see it's a red and gold helicopter. It's a Bell helicopter. It's not a National Guard. And they're like, oh, National Guard saves 11-day-old premature baby. And I kind of saw it being spread all over social media. And I was just like, y'all are disgusting.

Literally, these people are out here dying. I should say, right after that 11-day-year-old baby, we went and saved an elderly lady who had a day left to live on oxygen. She was cut off in the middle of nowhere. We're the first people to reach them. How are these, how is everybody getting in touch with you guys? Because everything we're hearing is there's no communications, there's no Starlink, there's no nothing. Facebook, messages direct to people like ourselves. So that particular one, the son, who was probably in his early 30s, hiked

over the mountain to check on his family. - Like five miles. - And then went back to get cell phone signal to put out a request. - Wow. - And so all it was was Bent Creek. I think there was an address. - I think there was a grid or an address that just said like, "People here need help." - And so we just flew into that area, found the river, followed the river, looked for houses, and then spotted in the mud and on the road SOS

That's how you guys are identifying? So the cloud layer was pretty low. It was a little bit foggy, a little bit rainy. And we're looking, and all the roads to this area, I'm going to say it was probably 10 miles in, were just completely washed away, like just completely eroded. So there's no way to get in.

there i mean can you even tell there is a road there was there was there's remnants of it there might be a little bit of it here but it's all washed away and as we were flying over i actually didn't see it the first time and then i caught my eye i saw big white letters painted on the road that was washed out said sos and then probably 30 yards away from that it was carved in the mud probably about foot wide sos so i was like hey mark like let's go down there but it was like

on a valley, the road was washed out and I'm trying to find an HLZ. We actually didn't see it when we were coming in, but we crossed two power lines that we almost hit on the way out. But we literally dropped in basically like on this little small piece of concrete next to a house and a hill and then a washed out road, which we couldn't land there because we were afraid it would collapse into the river.

And then we shut down, got out, started talking to him. That's usually how we get our intel. We start talking to him. Hey, like what's going on? Who needs help? And they're like, oh, this guy's low on insulin. But there was a lady there and she only had about enough fuel in her generator to run her oxygen machine for about a day left. And they said she won't leave. She's not going to leave.

Because her whole family was there. And emotions are high. When they first see you, and we're the first people to reach them, I think that was like day four. They're just like, you can see kind of the color come back to their face. But they were...

Everyone we kept running into like them, they didn't want to leave because they thought the government would be there in a week. So they're like, oh, like everything's going to be okay in a couple of days, right? Like it's day four already. And I'm like, y'all don't know how bad this is because they're thinking it's just their river that's washed out, not the entire like North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia. And we've shown videos and they're just like, oh, I'm like, you're probably not going to have a road for two to four months.

and that would kind of change their opinion on them wanting to leave. But that lady, yeah, go back to her, low oxygen, about a day left, we convinced her to get in the helicopter 'cause we could take her son who hiked over the mountains with his daughter as well, and then we flew him out. But I mean, again, like great, you know, if it wasn't for Mark, we wouldn't have been able to do that or Zeb, but as we were taking off, I just, Mark, he was like, basically like, oh God, he just yanked the power up and there was a power line like right in front of us. - Wow.

And then I was like, okay, I'm looking out. And then there was another one right in front of that. So that was kind of like a big eye opener. Like, okay, like we really got to be switched on here because this is not a normal HLZ landing. And then even as we landed to bring them back to their house, we had to land on a slope like this, which is something he's never done before. And we actually had some issues on that one as well. We actually thought we put the tail in the dirt.

because it started like vibrating real hard and we were just like oh man we're stuck here in the middle of nowhere but it was just kind of like the way the angle was and it was fine but then we had to go back and grab them um because we couldn't carry all the weight but that's literally the kind of situations that were that were going on and that oh sorry we actually went and checked on that that area about three days later yeah really and because we had to leave the husband of the woman he wanted to stay and prepare the house to prevent mold

And so we came back in and checked on them a couple days later, and you could start to see the signs of the community turning on themselves.

Is it so looting is starting to happen, that kind of stuff? Desperation? Animalistic. Yeah, yeah. Trying to control the food and stuff. Fighting for resources. You can see that happening then. You can smell the death in that site pretty strongly as well. You can smell the death out there and stuff, like in the log, because the log piles are just, there's so many that just washed up in the rivers. And they would tell us, like, yeah, people are in there. They have like eight, we have eight people missing from the community. We know they're in there. You can smell it. You can smell bodies. But to kind of go back to your original question on that,

So we did that baby rescue, we did that elderly lady, and then I started seeing those videos kind of going out. It was the very next day, day three. And that's why I... We were told as our unit, we were going to have like support helicopters.

And actually, I was told I was going to have like nine helicopters, like Fortune Nukes, 360s, 272s. And we're supposed to have all the support for our unit to go out there. And we weren't getting that. And then just talking to everybody else, they weren't getting it. And we were basically told like, you can get a helicopter if it's like life or death. And I'm just like, well, we can't go rescue these people. They're literally like a day left of oxygen. They're going to die immediately.

So I was getting just like super frustrated because I had actually coordinated like 140 person evacuation the next day. I had this like nursing home and I had no helicopters to do it. Who is they that's telling you it has to be life or death? It was coming through like our liaison officer of North Carolina. I don't know exactly who it was. Some government official? Yeah, some government official coming down through our commander office.

So I obviously completely jumped the chain of command and, uh, but I don't wait around for things to happen. And I was, I was super mad. And I actually got off the phone, um, with my, my title business partner, who's an attorney, uh, Jim Boatman. I go to him for a lot of wisdom. He's very good, godly man. He's, you know, he's a little bit older than me. And if I need something, he's usually the one telling me like, don't say those things, you know, watch what you're saying. Don't curse things like that. And, um,

He's like, "You gotta make a video, John." He's like, "You gotta do it." He was like, "If these people are really like, it's life or death," he's like, "Make a video and post it." And I was like, "All right." So I literally went out there to where our HLZ was and I made that video pretty angrily. And I was just, I was disgusted with what I was seeing. I was mad that they weren't giving us support. They're pretending like everyone there is getting support. But then when the 11-day baby premature video comes out of us rescuing it, they're like,

look at us, we're doing everything we can. You know, now they're trying to like pretend like they're helping and like, oh, it was the National Guard that did this. And I was just like, y'all have time to post on social media about what we're doing. But like literally if it wasn't for that civilian with his helicopter, that baby was dead. That old lady was dead.

And that's when I made that video. And I was like, you know what? Whatever's going to happen to me is going to happen to me. Like, you know, you guys want to kick me out of North Carolina or whatever. And I even thought like I was going to get a lot of backlash on that from my leadership. But they were just like, I mean, that was like that needed to happen because we just weren't getting the support that we needed. And I can't tell you how much when I made that video that day and posted it.

From the very next day, I think I probably had access to about 15 helicopters. We had Congress people reaching out to us, like texting us at 1230 at night. I had all these feelings like I'm bringing 18 wheelers of truckload supplies. I mean, just night and day difference. Even just people like within the area of North Carolina, like Charlotte, Wilmington, they're just like, I cannot believe what's going on. We thought it was being handled. And they just started rushing up there. So like the people that were actually living there, they started like thanking us, like thank you for that video. And we were just kind of like,

we didn't realize how big of a deal it was going to be wow and we ran into so many people on those hlz's that were there helping and they said we're here helping because we saw we saw what you guys are doing we saw we saw john's video we saw all the things that you guys are doing and the impact you're having so we dropped what we had and came up here to help thank you for listening to the sean ryan show if you haven't already

Please take a minute, head over to iTunes, and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through, and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. And then also from that video, I started getting a lot of messages to my Instagram from actual aircraft commanders, like squadron commanders. No kidding. I had a squadron commander from North Carolina reach out to me,

They had to load a C-17 full of supplies just to take a photo op for Kamala. And they never sent the bird. Wait a minute, what? They loaded an entire C-17 full of supplies for the hurricane victims just for Kamala to go there, take a photo, take a video, and they never sent the C-17. Are you serious? That was a National Guard, North Carolina National Guard unit. That was a 06 that reached out to me.

And then I had another— He reached out to you to tell you that they did a photo op with the intention of never sending the— Never sent it. It was just a photo op. The day Joe Biden flew in to Asheville, they had to put up another temporary flight restriction over the entire airspace there. There wasn't an exact time. It just kind of said from, I think, 11 to 4 p.m. or something there.

And it wound up being, I think, from 1130 to about 330 or something. But by him coming there, he actually never landed. He just flew around viewing. But because of that TFR, all rescues were shut down. We couldn't go do work. And that was the very first day we had like no fog, no clouds, no rain. And we were like, oh, we're going to go get all these rescues in. And this was still earlier in the week. I think it was Wednesday when people were still very, very desperate. So, yeah.

I ran to a senator from North Carolina the day before at the Asheville airport, and he was telling me about it.

He was like, "We're trying to stop him from coming here." And they were telling him, "If you come here, they're not going to be able to do their job." Can you tell me what senator? I don't remember his name. I don't remember his name at all. It was just old. He was an older guy. I know, I was told he was a Republican, had no idea who he was. But he was like, "We're trying to stop him from coming here so it doesn't slow down rescue operations." Because at this point, it was still life or death.

But he came anyways, shut us down. And we were, me and him were literally just sitting there with our helicopter right in front of us for like three, three and a half hours. And we couldn't go do one mission during that time. And then by the time we got done, I think we only got maybe two missions in before it got dark. But it was just, that's the kind of, it's like,

That's the kind of political nonsense that was happening. And then I think the next day we had fog again. Did anything come of the president flying over? Well, he didn't even remember that he flew over. Yeah, he didn't remember. What do you mean? He got interviewed after he landed and they said, "Mr. President, what do the people in the storm states need?" And his response was, "What storm?" He said, "I'm trying to remember what storm you're talking about." Are you serious? And then he said, "Oh, they have everything they need. We're very happy."

They have everything they need. Quote, word for word. It's all over the media right now. I mean, it's everywhere. But yeah, it was just... We'll pull that clip and insert it as well. Yeah, but it was just the nonsense where it was like all crews just got shut down. What do the states in the storm zone need, Mr. President? What do the states in the storm zone, what do they need after what you saw today? Oh, in the storm zone? Yes, sir. I don't know what storm you're talking about. They have everything they need.

We're very happy. It's just a non-functioning government, just like we just said. Secret Service isn't functioning. The border isn't functioning. Chinese are coming in. There's a fentanyl crisis. I mean, the outrageous spending. I mean, the only thing that seems to be functioning in this country is the IRS. And hopefully that changes soon. That's the kind of stuff that was happening. I had another, it was a Coast Guard squadron commander of a Seahawk unit, a Black Hawk,

And I can't remember if it was South Carolina or North Carolina. He's like, "I have been requesting to go there every day. I get denied." Like, they wouldn't send them. And even JSOC— Why aren't they sending the aid? All my JSOC buddies, all my boys at the 2-4, PJs, all that, they're literally right there in Fayetteville. They could not get authorization to come. Like, they'd be messaging me like, "Dude, we want to come." My old unit, 2-3, they wanted to come. Just nonsense. What's frustrating is we just fought a 20-year war in Afghanistan.

We have the people, we have the equipment, we have the experience to get things and resources into hard places. Every military crew that we saw, we would ask them, do you have a sling load kit? No sling load kit. I think we heard of one sling load operation that happened. No sling load kit? No. There's Chinooks there. There's Chinooks there. And they're just not doing it. So if you have the people, the equipment, and the experience to go do it, what's the problem?

Why aren't you doing it? Because someone has to make that decision. Tell them what the guy told us yesterday from Fort Bragg. Oh, yeah. So we ran into an 82nd Airborne guy, and we were excited. We were like, oh, the 82nd's finally here. This is awesome. What are you doing? And he, at first, was very, you know, standoffish, and then we built some rapport with the guy. Well, we told him, like, hey, CCT, TAP, be here. He said, okay, like, we kind of, like, relaxed. And he goes, we're just here flying 06s around.

Are you serious? Their only mission the entire week is to fly colonels and VIPs around. Because that's why they didn't have saline load capability. They literally took it off. And Zeb's helicopter was used to fly county officials over their county to do a damage assessment multiple times. Yeah.

The lieutenant governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson, he has a relationship with Zeb, the owner of the aircraft, and he would be texting him to go do missions. And I remember, I think it was like day two, I was like, why is the lieutenant governor, the second highest powerful guy, having you as a civilian fly officials around? And he was like, he can't get any support. He has no authority to do anything because the governor of North Carolina won't do anything. Apparently, he said he was AWOL for three days. I think that was like maybe Wednesday or something like that.

But, like, you know it's bad when the second highest powerful guy in North Carolina can't even get his own helicopter to fly people around. Let's put a pause on the failed government for a minute and talk about what you guys are saying. So we'll dive back into that. But from what we're hearing over here, there are entire villages and towns just completely gone. Cut off. As in, like—

They never existed. Is that, is that? This is a storm that, this has never happened before. Like in Florida, when we get a storm, the water rises equally and then it goes away. In the mountains, it goes where it goes. And the people who make the roads evidently follow that same plan because the roads are right next to the rivers. So as the rivers rise and the water starts flowing and a bridge gets washed out,

That bridge hits the next bridge. Now you have two bridges floating down the river. They hit the next bridge, so you have this big snowball effect of debris taking out all the roads. And what do we say that one river was supposed to be six inches wide, and now it's like 60 meters wide? It was outside Marion. The county survey guy, he said that that river originally was only six inches deep and about a foot wide.

And then when we flew over it, I think it was probably at least 60 meters wide. So all the houses that were near there literally just got completely demolished and flushed because it was like a mudslide and just the river overflowed. So this whole area was cleared about 60 meters wide. Vehicles just tumbled into it. I think he told us at that location about 15 deaths. At that one location, about 15 people were killed there. And so if the roads are gone and these people think when the power goes out, it'll be back on in a week, tops, right?

But the roads are gone. And it doesn't, you can't build a road overnight. It's going to take months and months and months. And a bridge is even longer. Right. Yeah. I mean, so that the lady with the no auction that we went to go rescue, on the way over there, we've passed four bridges that were just completely demolished. Four bridges. Like big concrete bridges, just gone. So any logical thinker would see that scenario and go, well, we need helicopters. Yeah.

or pack mules, right? I mean, that's the only way to do it. Yeah, yeah. And so you have all these supplies coming in to distribution points, and then the people that can drive to those distribution points get what they need, and that's great. But you can't get those resources out to the hilltops without helicopters. And in most places, you can't land. So you have to lower things down, which is why we're asking about the sling loads. So there's just no plan. That's the bottom line. Yeah. How many people have you guys saved? Do you know?

Or rescued. The first three or four days, we had... We picked up a lot of people. The two that really stand out to me was just the baby, because those were just like actual life or death.

But we picked up a lot of people. I can't remember how many, but it was a lot. Do you have an estimation? 100, 50, 20? No, we didn't do that many. No, no, we didn't do that many. I'd probably say a good 10, 15. Yeah, 10 or 15. 10 or 15 people like that. Because we can only get, to give you an idea, we can only do about one mission every about hour and a half to two hours.

Because of weight and fuel. Yeah. So we would, you know, fly out 20 to 30 minutes, land there, rescue them, fly

fly them back to where they needed to go. Then we had to go refuel, get the next mission. So at that point, it's usually about two hours. What about when you guys started getting more access to helicopters? That's when we started just spreading them everywhere. And then they were able to go... I mean, I don't know what each person did, but they were able to go do a lot of rescues. So you guys aren't even keeping track. You're just...

100% go 24 hours a day. There was no downtime. And the service is so bad. The only time I'd ever even get service was just when we're up in the air for a little bit for a few minutes here and there, and then we're back on the ground. I mean, literally, we hit the ground, we refuel, we grab a mission, and we just go. And then we would do that basically from about, we usually couldn't get started until about 9.30 because of fog.

So, you know, about 9:30 we would go and then we usually had to stop about 6:30. So it would just be go, go, go that entire time. And we would just grab food when we could, grab food and fuel where we could and just make it happen. - So it was either personal recovery or food and water delivery? - Medicine. - Medicine, a lot of medicine. - Starlink. - Starlink. - Starlink. - Starlink started at the end of the week. Yeah, mainly, so it started basically with like personnel recovery the first couple days.

And then it seemed probably around maybe Thursday, the personnel recovery kind of slowed down. Everyone like basically got out that needed to get out. And then it went more to like insulin, medical supplies, EpiPens. And then once we got a pretty good hold of that, it kind of went more to like Starlinks. Like that way they could just message us and be like, we have an emergency. You know, this person needs this. Even the firefighters, we did a lot of firefighter drops. So we would actually, in a civilian helicopter, be,

be picking up search and rescue crews, mainly firefighters, and flying them to their locations because they couldn't get any kind of helicopter support. So we would be doing that. - These states that got paid to send task forces to help, we were picking them up and moving them to different locations.

I actually posted a video. We had two civilian helicopters. We landed them in the field to pick up, I think it was eight firefighters. And these are big old boys. So we had to like really balance the weight. But that's what I'm saying. Like people are like, oh, why are you guys there? You don't need to be there. There's military, there's government. And I'm like, then why are we doing these missions? Like if there wasn't a need for us, we wouldn't be doing these missions. Yeah. So yeah, we were moving a lot of people, county officials, state officials, um,

search and recovery crews. Like we'd even drop our, we'd take our search and recovery guys from aerial with a bunch of chainsaws and literally fly them to the top of a mountain, drop them off and have them work their way down. Just going looking and clearing. - How are you guys delivering fuel for the chainsaws and all that stuff? - Helicopter. - You just carry it with them, yeah. - Yeah. We literally load the helicopter up.

I mean, a little sketchy sometimes, like carrying propane tanks inside the helicopter and stuff like that, highly flammable. But I mean, we would load up like five, six propane tanks and then just go up there and drop it off to people. Damn. Do you have any estimation of how many people are in distress? Somebody should. Not you guys? I doubt anybody does. Thousands. Thousands. I mean, a lot of these people are just, it's so remote.

And I said, the road might be washed out for 10 to 20 miles. And the terrain is impassable really even by foot or even by pack mule because it's just so steep and so wooded. You're only getting there by helicopter. I mean, it's just, yeah, there's a lot of people stranded. And that's just in the area of Western North Carolina where we are. I know it's even more widespread than that. Have you guys done anything in Tennessee? Nope, not there. Not for this storm yet. What, you know, what are some of the...

Where are you guys getting the Starlink from? Donated. So we work a lot with Global Empowerment Mission. It's obviously a global nonprofit, and they had a lot donated. And then we would take their supplies that were donated to them and then go deploy them out into the field. And how long—we talk about when desperation kicks in a lot on the show. And it's really hard for people to kind of fathom what that's like when—

the community starts looking inward. So what, but you know, that's what happens when people get desperate, starve, you know, they're starving, they're dying of thirst, they don't have medicine. I mean, you guys know all this stuff. A lot of people don't, but what, you know, when did you, what are some of the things you started noticing? When did that start happening?

That was about day two or three. That was about Thursday. We went back into Bent Creek. Bent Creek, yeah. They would come up to us individually and say, hey, I don't trust that guy over there. Yeah, they really would. Okay. It was getting kind of weird. They'd be like, watch that guy. He's kind of shit. That guy over there by your helicopter, keep an eye on him. Yeah. I look over and he's grabbing the prop, the rotor blade, pulling on it. I'm like, don't touch the helicopter, bro. Are they...

stealing each other's supplies or anything like this? Anything like that happen? They were saying that. I know when we tried to offload that day at the helicopter, as we started unloading, this lady and her boyfriend just kind of randomly came out of nowhere, and they were trying to control the supplies for the whole community. And they were like, no, no, no, everyone's getting their fair share of this. But they were trying to do a lot of control and stuff like that. They were even...

They even told us that there was actually a bunch of illegal immigrants living there in the mountains, and they would come out at nighttime and steal their stuff. One of them even said that they surrounded—this was somewhere out there, but a guy hiked in to be with his family. And he said where he was, they were actually surrounding cars at nighttime with guns and taking people's stuff and then just leaving.

- Damn. Are you seeing communities stand together at all? - Oh yeah. - Oh yeah. - Yeah, definitely. They're being very protective. Most people out there were, especially in the rural places, they were all very open and caring. - So a lot of them are supporting each other. - Oh yeah. - And that's what needs to happen. You can sit at home and wait for the government to show up all you want and the military to show up all you want. They're probably not going to. And so these towns and these families, they should all have

contingency plans. Like the government's bad at business. They're just not good at business. They don't protect their resources. They don't use their resources. We know the power grid is vulnerable. Have you been to a power station? - Oh yeah. - You could just drive to it right now and chuck rocks at it. - Yeah, they're guarded by a chain link fence. - Right, right. So you've got a government that's bad at business, doesn't protect their resources, doesn't use the resources they have. Why on earth would you think

that they're going to come save you. You know, I mean, I've been talking about it for a long time. You know, the government, we don't have a functioning government right now. We have a border that's wide open. We have runaway money going to every other country out there except ours. It sounds very similar to the situation in Hawaii not too long ago. It doesn't sound like these people are getting aid. I mean, you know, NBC actually put an article out saying that this is all a big conspiracy theory. So I

Somebody on my team sent this to me, but you know, this is part of the article. FEMA Administrator Deanna Criswell told ABC News this week on Sunday that the agency absolutely has all the resources it needs and that claims that the agency has been delivering funds to migrants are just plain false.

And, you know, here's ABC News. Mayorkas warms FEMA, doesn't have enough funding to last through the hurricane season. Homeland Security...

Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says the agency tasked with helping communities recover from Hurricane Helene and other natural disasters does not have enough money to make it through hurricane season. So I don't, you know, once again, mainstream media is, you know, contradicting itself and likely is completely full of shit. So FEMA's running out of money? That's what it, that's what, well, according to the agency,

Secretary of FEMA, they're not running out of money, but, you know, Mayorkas is saying they're running out of money, both with the federal government. Who the fuck are we supposed to believe here? It's like anything, you know, you have money for what you prioritize. And then, you know, that's another reason why I wanted to bring you guys in is because, yeah,

Great. Thank you, NBC. Do you have anybody on the fucking ground over there? Probably not. Cool. Are there any government officials on the ground over there? Probably. It sounds like they're all flying around in fucking helicopters getting little photo shoots. And, um...

I'm getting fucking pissed just talking about it. You should make a video and go viral. Well, that's what we're doing right now. There you go. But, you know, there are, there have been reports that FEMA's blocking aid and blocking supplies. Do you think, you know, I don't want to just jump on the bandwagon. Do you think there's any, do you think they might be

if they are blocking aid and supplies, do you think that there's a bigger plan and maybe they just don't want people looting? And I know on the last hurricane down in last, was it last year when Sanibel Fort Myers got hit? I know they were keeping people from, this is for Mark Turner, they were keeping people from going to Sanibel to do aid because they didn't want people looting. Do you think that could be-

I don't think they have a plan. They have no plan. I think it's complete incompetence is the problem. Okay. So there's not some big grand scheme. It's like the Secret Service. Yeah. Complete failure. I personally never saw one FEMA person the entire time. Are you serious? I never saw one. The only one I saw was a protection security team they brought in from California. It was like an FBI raid team. They're just sitting there.

where the food supply was where we would usually stop to get food and they're just sitting there in plates like full plates long guns suppressors they were cool like we went and talked to them most of them were former soft guys but i was like why are you guys what are you guys doing and they're like oh we're just here on behalf of fema and they're like ever since katrina they always have like a security team but i never saw like a fema official they were just sitting there literally like plates on just waiting for something and i don't think they ever did anything but

A couple of guys we said, the guy at the airport, Rutherford, is it Dean? Whatever they got. - Devin? - Devin. He had FEMA contractors. They were contracted on behalf of FEMA come talk to him about how they kind of wanted him to start running operations there, but no actual FEMA officials. So I personally never saw any FEMA officials. The only, I think, politician I ever actually saw was Lieutenant Governor,

Who else? I saw Pat Harrigan. He's a buddy running for Congress up there. He's a former Green Beret. I think that's it, I want to say. There was no actual officials other than fire chiefs and stuff like that. I don't think FEMA is evil. The people who work at FEMA are not evil. I think they're just a part of a big bureaucratic system that is so large they're not efficient to get the job done. Yeah, I don't want to...

I don't want to demoralize anybody that is working for FEMA, for National Guard, for government organizations who is legitimately just trying to help. This is an issue at the highest level. And once again, those folks, you know, hopefully one day are held accountable, you know, for incompetence or malicious activity. But

- What are, is there anything else when it comes to, you know, the government's response that you guys want to cover? - Well, like I said, I think waiting for a government response should never be your first plan. You know, Aerial Recovery would love to work with towns to come up, you know, pick a town. Let's make a town the model for self-sustainment and survivability.

come up with a communication plan, come up with a distribution plan of supplies, come up with an accountability plan for who's where, who's missing, and really build a model for other towns to build off of. That would be genius. What can people help with? What do these guys, what do the people need?

the most? Is it money? Is it chainsaws, food, water, medicine, blankets? - It's not money 'cause they-- - They're getting $750, they're good. - Yeah, they got $750. They got nowhere to go spend it on, you know? Like they can't buy anything online. They live on the mountains, nothing can be delivered to them. - You didn't hear that? - No. - They're getting, the government's giving everybody $750. They can't go to an ATM to get the money out 'cause there's no power. They can't use their cell phones to pay with anything

via phone because their phones are probably dead and you can't buy anything from businesses because they don't have power. So money for the people doesn't really help them in this moment. No, really what they need is food. There's also a concern right now for cold weather gear since winter's coming up and these people aren't going to have power, some of them probably maybe until the end of the year. So cold weather gear, things like that.

I mean, people just bring their hands up there to put work in. What do they bring it to? Harley-Davidson in Asheville is being ran by a former soft guy, and he is doing an amazing—he's running that as a soft mission.

They even have, I ran into one of my CCT friends who's running the HLZ out there. They're landing about six helicopters deep out there. He's controlling it. They're doing refuelings. I mean, they have chainsaws, generators, everything. They're doing probably the best we've seen. 100%. And then at Hickory, Operation Airdrop, they're doing a really good job over there controlling all these air missions. And then Aerial Recovery, they're out there doing, you know, we're out there doing our part as well. But, I mean, really just anywhere.

Just working in the food kitchens over there by the airports and resupply drops, it's huge. We had two ladies from Charlotte reach out to us and they were like,

We're just going to bring you guys meals. And like just having a hot meal and hot coffee for first responders going out first thing in the morning, like just changes your mental mood. Just even going out made a huge difference. So just, I mean, there's work for anyone to get out there and help, but I don't really, I don't want to say right now it's a financial situation. It probably will become later on when they can actually use funds. But a lot of these places, they just, the money, it's useless. There's nothing for them to use it. I would say the biggest need right now is heavy equipment.

You got to get these roads, you got to get the communication or the transportation system resolved or these people are going to starve. Like the people that we talked to, they probably have about a month before they're going to be the ones calling for an evac if they can even get a call out. You know, a lot of people didn't want to leave. It was their life savings to come into the hills of North Carolina and build a property without insurance. You know, everything they have is there. They're not going to leave.

But the EVAC business is going to be a lot more active as it gets colder and as the time goes on. - I mean, are you guys going to need financial support? - We've got a fundraiser set up. I think it's raised about $800,000. So the people have been very, very generous. We just started another fundraiser for Hurricane Milton.

I can tell you in the past, we responded to the Hawaii wildfires. We had people in Ukraine. We had people in Morocco. We do things globally. And in most of those cases, we do it out of our own pocket. Our founders are very, very generous people. And their mentality is God will provide. We've got a program where we take veterans and put them through a 12-month program to heal them and then train them and give them purpose and

a new mission. So we're preventing veteran suicide in that regard because we're giving them a new mission and giving them hope. And then we're using them as humanitarian special operators to go around the world and help people that are in their darkest moments. What are you guys expecting in this next hurricane? Oh, yeah. The one that's coming to Florida. What's the name of it? Milton. I mean, we're literally leaving from this show to get in the plane and go right back down there and link up with the team to push out tomorrow morning for it. But, uh,

I think it's going to be a bad one just because they're still cleaning up. There's a lot of debris, and those are going to be flying missiles. I know they're trying to get it all. They're doing a good job of getting it all, but, I mean, that hurricane just hit a week ago. Yeah. So there's still a lot of damage. But that storm surge into the Tampa area, Tampa floods really bad. So people just need to get out. They just got to push inland, get safe, and then, you know,

The good thing about Florida, though, we're very good at handling emergencies. We have good leadership. We have a strong C2 command and control. So Florida will be established very quickly. But there's just going to be that downtime of, you know, let's get the roads back up, the power lines, getting the water systems up. So it's going to be a bad one, but Florida's definitely prepared for it. And what are the links? So when you guys...

Is this, how do I say this? Is this compartmentalized for fundraising for each disaster? It is, it is. So we have the fundraiser for Hurricane Helene, the fundraiser for Hurricane Milton. And those are posted on our Instagram aerial recovery group. Okay. In the bio section, you can find those. What can, so I know you guys are asking for heavy equipment. You brought up volunteers. What can the everyday person do

do who can't travel across the country to go work in a kitchen,

they don't have the means to send an excavator or a steamroller out there, what can they do? They can donate or they can do their own supply drive. We had several folks putting together packages of care items and then having them flown into the area. You talked about FEMA earlier. That airplane almost got shut off flying into Asheville Airport. We had to go back to our buddy Devin at Hickory and

get him to allow that aircraft to land and offload all those supplies yesterday. - Another big thing is spreading awareness. I know everyone's hearing all this misinformation,

I get accused by people like, you're a liar, you're spreading false information, you're looking for your 15 minutes of fame, all this nonsense stuff. But I actually have the real videos showing this stuff. And these other people online are just lying, they're reading articles. They're like, well, I read there's 6,000 military people there, and I'm like, where are they at? I'm here, I don't see them.

So there's a lot of misinformation, but keep spreading it. I mean, like my own video got fact-checked by a third party. Are you serious? Yeah, it really did. My own video got fact-checked. And it's like, this is false information. I'm just like, that's my own video. So there's a lot of... They're really trying to suppress the story of what's really happening there. Actually...

Jeremy, the founder of Aerial Recovery, he was meeting with the mayor and they had CNN there at late lore. And he was escorting CNN, the biggest fake news network there is. And they wouldn't even let CNN videotape the disaster areas. They'd only let them film areas that weren't that bad. Are you serious? That's how bad it is when they don't even allow CNN to actually film the real story.

And speaking of late lure, we should probably talk about that. That was our very first day of arriving. So when we arrived into Rutherford Airport, as we were making connections with helicopter pilots, on my pilot app, there was a TFR, temporary flight restriction, specifically over late lure and Chimney Rock. So no aircraft could fly in and out of it. So we were trying to figure out why that was because we wanted to take my plane and kind of go up and just recon and see what was going on.

So we called the guy that put it up. He was in charge of Frankie. Frankie. Let's name drop Frankie. Guy Frankie at Emergency Management Services. I don't know his last name. Was like, oh, yeah, we put it up to basically stop because the guy that flew his helicopter in there to drop off supplies. They were mad about it. So he's kind of going viral right now in the news. Literally, this guy flew his helicopter in and bring like water and food. And they reported him to the FAA.

So they were like, you can't fly in there. I'm like, well, look, I'm here, State Guard. I'm also here with aerial recovery. Like, I need to get in there because we're pushing in. Plus, we already had an aerial recovery ground team there on the ground who was actually meeting with the mayor of Lake Lure. So Charlie asked him, he goes, well, what altitude can we fly at? He goes, I don't know.

And we're like, what do you mean? You put the TFR up? Like, can we fly over it? Like, what can we do? He's just like, I don't know. And then he really started pushing them hard. And he was like, okay, you guys can fly in there. I'll give you like a squat code that'll allow you, but you can't land in there. And I'm like, well, yeah, I know. I'm in a fixed wing airplane. I can't land. It's not a rotor. And he's just like, okay, just like don't land there. But you can just tell he didn't know what was going on. So...

We didn't do the helicopter ride that day, but right after that, we drove in. As we were driving into Lake Lure, there was a sheriff deputy, one deputy sitting there at like a checkpoint blocking the road. And he sees us. He goes, oh, you guys stop. I already heard about you. You can't come in here. And we were like, what do you mean you heard about us? Like, we just got here. He's like, yeah, area recovery, you're not allowed to come in here. They're talking about you all over the radio right now. So he's calling his team who's in Lake Lure with the mayor. And they're like, we don't know what's going on.

So we tell this deputy, we're like, hey man, we know you're just the messenger. Like, get me some authority up here. So a police captain comes up to us, nice guy. He goes, yeah, I can't let you in guys. He goes, they're blocking aerial recovery from coming in. And that's where I'm like, hey, I'm with the state guard. I want to go in there. And he's like, I can't do it. He's like, something about the speaker of the house of North Carolina is blocking you guys from coming in. And we were just like, this is not making any sense at all.

So he gets on the phone again. And really what it came down to was some people didn't like the temperament of us. I'll get to that a little bit more. And then they were telling officials to completely kick us out from going in.

So, this police captain was like, I will escort y'all into the next checkpoint and get you through to your team. He goes, I can probably get in a lot of trouble for this. But he was like, I want everyone here to help. And he's like, these people need a bat. So, good on that police captain. Well, that was after we threatened him. Yeah, we kind of threatened him a little bit. So, we leave. This is kind of important. We leave that checkpoint into Lake Lure. There's only one road, right? We leave that checkpoint there.

We drive through the second checkpoint. He's like, all right, you guys are good to go by yourselves. So we drive in. There's a third checkpoint now. And actually, I should say that second checkpoint probably had four deputies. We go to the third checkpoint. There's eight deputy sheriffs. They're just standing there, not doing nothing. And they're like, nope, guys can't go any further. They just call it out on the radio. We're like, no, we just got- Eight fucking deputies sitting there doing nothing? Interactions with 15- You got thousands and thousands of people starving to death, dying of fucking-

not having medicine, babies, no water, and you got eight fucking deputies sitting on their ass. 15. 15 deputies sitting on their ass at a checkpoint. At a single lane road. Single lane. They even had a SWAT vehicle. They had a SWAT, like, up-armored, like, MRAP that was there. So it gets a little heated, but I start talking to him, and I'm like, hey, like, what do they have you guys doing? He's like, I'm like, are you guys doing a search and recovery, doing welfare checks? Yeah.

He was like, we want to. All we can do is stand right here at this checkpoint. I was like, these guys are in their 20s and 30s. He's like, literally, our only orders, we can't do anything but stand right here. And I'm just like, what a waste of manpower. What department is this? It was whatever county late Laura's in. This is the sheriff's department of that county.

So they would not let us go through. They're like, hey, I'm just the messenger. Like, I'm going to get in trouble by the sheriff. And we're like, okay, so the sheriff is denying us. And he's like, yes, the sheriff is denying you per the speaker of the House of North Carolina. And we're like, this is just dumb. And then we started, that's when Charlie was like, you guys about to go viral on the internet. I'm going to record you denying us to come in. And they were just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay. You know what? We'll let you go up to the fire chief because he's actually in control of this area.

So we roll up to, it was like kind of between Chimney Rock and Late Lure. And there's this Michigan task force. We're going to get to these guys. This Michigan task force who is there for profit, we find out later on.

And they're there with the fire chief and they're just, their leader, I don't want to put it on the whole team there, but their leader was just very condescending. He just had this punch me face. And he just kept looking at us with like disgust. He just kind of sit there with his hands on his hips and he just kind of like look at us and just kind of like, and then one of our guys who was there on the ground already, he comes up to me and Charlie and he's like, hey, these guys, they're the problem. They're the ones reporting us to get us kicked out because they don't like us.

And we're like, what do you mean? And he goes, well, I overheard a couple of them saying, he goes, look at these guys. They think they're a bunch of badasses. And he actually told me, he goes, I can hear what you're saying. And the guy was just kind of like, oh. But you look at these guys, they were a search and recovery team who had no physical capability to do this job at all. They're all very out of shape, much older. They probably could barely go up 200 yards up the side of a mountain.

So it kind of became this like dick measuring contest. They're looking at us. We're all former soft guys. Even the leader of their group actually looks over at us. He goes, look like a bunch of Navy SEALs. I probably wouldn't wrestle y'all. Just like, and we're like, hey man, cut all that out. We're here to rescue people. We're here to put in work. Like we literally just got here and you're over here worrying about wrestling matches and who's who. Like just tell us where we can go push in and get work done.

So after we get this little confrontation done, we shake hands, seems like everything's cool. They're like, okay, you guys can come back here and work. And we're like, great, it's done. Like we can finally get to work. But it was already at the evening time. So the Michigan guy in charge of this task force calls for a 7 a.m. meeting the next day. Like we'd be there at 7 a.m., we'll get our products and we'll push out and do work.

And we stay two hours away, right? We're not going to stay in Lake Lure and take up resources from the people who need everything. So we stay two hours away. So we're on the road at five o'clock the next morning. 5 a.m., we roll 5 a.m. Like wake up time, 4.30, we're rolling 5 a.m. We're there like 15 minutes prior. No one's there. 7 a.m. comes up, fire chief rolls up.

Nobody else. Sheriff deputies roll up and we're like, where are these guys? 7:40 they roll up. 7:40 they roll up. Daylight's already burning. And they roll up just like grinning at us, just like, hmm, you know, just they had this little smug looks on their face. They get out and their leader of this group grabs the fire chief and one of the sheriff people, pulls them away from us and has a little powwow for about five minutes. Comes back around by himself, this guy from Michigan,

Same thing, hands on his hips. He goes, "Where's your authorization papers?" And we're like, "What?" He's like, "Where's your orders to be here? Who authorized you to be here?" And I was just like, I cannot believe this is happening right now. And Charlie's like, "We're a nonprofit. We don't need authorization. Like we're here to like rescue people." So I actually have authorization orders. And I'm like, "Well, here's my authorization. Like I'm from the state guard." And I hand him my phone and he looks at it and he goes, "This is useless.

They literally didn't even look at it. I was like, no, those are my orders. I'm like, I'm here on behalf of my governor to be here. He was like, I don't even know your capabilities. And I'm just like, are you kidding me right now? So he gets in this whole, like, I can't work with you. And then Charlie's like, well, why don't you just tell us where you're going to be so we don't cross paths? We'll work over here. You guys work here. Let's just kind of like set out our grids. Nope. I can't even discuss nothing with you. And I'm just like,

Who is this guy? You know, like the fire chief's not even talking to us. So we start questioning him, like, who's your authority? Who has given you your authority to be in control of this area right now? He goes, my authority comes from Michigan State, which comes from North Carolina.

I'm like, okay, well, who? He's like, well, it comes from Michigan on behalf of North Carolina because they request for us to be here and I'm in control here. So he's like literally saying like, I'm like, this is my place. Wow. So as he pulls off, he goes and talks to the fire chief a little bit more. I overhear him saying he needs a helicopter. He's like, I need a helicopter to the fire chief. And he's like, he's literally like, like pointing at me like, I need this helicopter. Okay.

So I'm like, you know what? I'm going to be cool. Like, you know, I'm doing what's good for the people in North Carolina. I don't care about who's in charge. So I go up to him. I'm like, hey, I got a helicopter. Like, where do you need to go? What do you need to do? He's like, I can't work with you. I already told you this. Like, I don't know your capabilities or authorizations. So I start trying to explain to him, like, hey, I'm a combat controller, right?

I'm also an FAA air traffic controller. I can, this is like what I do is literally set up all your airfields and HLZs. Like I can land these helicopters out here for you, put your guys in it and go do the work you need to do. He's like, no, you can't do that. Like, I was like, well, I'm bringing in, at that time my state guard unit was driving up and they had helicopters. I was like, I'm bringing in helicopters in here. He's like, no, you're not. And I was like, well, you're not going to stop me. He's like, well, I put up a TFR.

And that's when I found out he was the one that told the Frankie at EMS to put up a TFR

Because he started telling me that he was so proud of himself about the guy that flew in supplies. And he was so mad about it. He's like, this guy flew in with supplies without my authorization and just landed in a field. I can't be having people out here landing helicopters, bringing supplies without talking to me first. So he's like, yeah, I report him to the FAA. And he was just like so proud of himself for that. Wow. They were gone the next day, by the way. They were. They were there for two days.

And they were gone. I got that from the fire chief. - So as we started talking to their crew, that's when we found out they were there for profit. And we're like, "How'd you guys get here?" And he's like, "Oh, we bid on the job." And we're like, "You bid on the job?" He's like, "Yeah, North Carolina put out requests for crews to show up and you get paid." I was just like, that's when it started making sense. He didn't want a state guard unit and a nonprofit there that would outshine him and his crew while they're there for profit.

I think that's really what it was. That's sad, man. Yeah. Meanwhile, these people are literally trapped. They're dying up there. Yeah. And they're not getting the help because everybody wants to, you know, they want their little fame and want to be in charge of everything. So that wasn't, so correct me if I'm wrong, but that wasn't the government. That was just a...

That was just on the ground politics. It was on the politics. Trying to make money off of people. As nice as the fire chief was, being nice is getting people killed. Yeah. And I should say, he was already retired. He retired in January. And he even told us they called him back on Sunday. They're like, hey, will you come back? So he literally volunteered to go back. And he was like making a little joke. I mean, he's a nice guy, but he's like, well, they can't fire me. I already retired.

And he's just getting walked like a dog by this guy from Michigan and just controlling the whole situation. And then apparently, actually, the sheriff, I do want to clarify this. Speaker of the House did not deny us. He personally reached out to us at 1230 at night after my video. He actually texted a guy on our team, my Instagram video. He's like, this was not me. And was apologizing. You have like full help. And even his...

I think it was his chief of staff or right hand, whatever it was. A guy named Phil, he called me. He was like, we did not do that. He was like, who was telling you that? So we kind of gave him the specifics. And then even the sheriff reached out and was like, I did not do that. And we're like, hey, well, you need to talk to your deputies because your deputies are the ones telling us that. So you need to clean your own house up on what's going on.

Damn. But, so I should say this. It was such nonsense. My commander and air recovery were like, you know what? We're just done with it. So we actually left Lake Lure and Chimney Rock. We just abandoned it and went and found other places to go work because we couldn't get any work done. On the ground. We did several missions in Lake Lure and Chimney Rock via air. Okay. But we had to pull the ground crews out because it was just... It was just too much drama. We couldn't get no work done. Yeah. Like nothing. Man. Man.

That's sad for those people. Yeah. That is really sad for those people. Well, I want to wrap this up. I just wanted to get, you know, I wanted to get you guys in here, get what you're doing, how we can help these people, what's actually going on on the ground. I really appreciate you guys coming in here to get the word out. And I know time is of the essence and you got to get back down to Florida, but I do, you know,

We here at SRS want to make a donation, and so I'm going to leave it up to you guys. We can donate $10,000 or we can give you $10,000 worth of supplies to go back with you. Awesome. It's up to you. That sounds good. Thank you so much. You're welcome. You're welcome. Are we wrapping up right now? Yeah. You got something else? I do got something else for you. Let's hear it. I know you always like to do gifts, and obviously this was not prepared at all, but my...

My wife came up here a couple days ago. She brought a couple stuff for me before we even knew we were coming on the show, just like handouts. So I actually got you a gift. Oh, I got you guys a gift too. Oh, okay.

Forgot to do this at the beginning. Thank you. I've always wanted these gummy bears. There you go. Yeah, I've always wanted these. There you go. Well, I got a gift for you as well. So I really do do bird photography, and people don't believe me just because of my appearance. They're like, you don't look like a photographer. I'm like, I know, but, like, this is – I took this photo in Chile in May. Damn, that's cool, man. This is, you know, the bag. I'll hold this up. I don't know if you guys can see it. But so –

photography i really like being out in nature nature's like my my happiness and stuff like that and it's i always say it's where i kind of like healed myself coming out of the military and just everything else just being out in nature um so i got into photography and i didn't want to become about money or anything like that so any dollar the business makes i just give to military charities um and the prints usually when there's like something bad happens i'll take a certain print i'll sign it and i'll auction it off and do things like that

So I know you're a very big Christian. And I took this photo earlier this year down in Bonita Springs at a church near my house. And I thought this would be a perfect one. I want to send you the print. Obviously didn't have it because we were in North Carolina. But I thought you would really appreciate this. It is a bald eagle landing on top of the steeple, on top of the cross, on top of the church.

in Bonita Springs, Florida. - That's awesome, man. Thank you. - It just worked out that my wife literally randomly grabbed this shirt out of my office and then,

I won't go through them all, but we had a bunch of like kid shirts because that's what my wife brought a lot of these just to hand out to kids. So they had like t-shirts and birds and stuff like that. But I figure your little kiddos or someone you know could use it. And a little bird bag. So that's my gift to you. Man, thank you. That's awesome. And if that print shows up. It will show up. Can you sign it? I'll sign it and I'll send it to you. It'll be hanging in the studio, man. Thank you. What I've got for you, Sean, here is a...

a bracelet that we give our heroes. We have a Heal the Heroes program. It's a 12-month program I was telling you about. And it says, Force for Good. So what it is, is it's a reminder that all your experiences, all your military time, all the things that you've done and seen in your life can be used as a force for good. And our program takes people out of alcohol addiction, out of drug addiction, out of depression addiction.

But this is the reminder that we give those guys to look at every day. - That's for you to either keep or to give to someone that you know that might need it. - Force for good. Thank you, gentlemen. Well, I just want to say, you know, it's an honor to be interviewing you guys and,

It's amazing what you guys are doing, and especially with the fact that we do have a failing government right now. And I'm just really thankful for you, and I know everybody else is too. So God bless you, and Godspeed in the next disaster. So cheers. - Thank you.