NJ business, airplane club and firefighters team up to aid Helene survivors

🌧️ Much of western part of the Carolinas have limited access

🌧️ Surf City Vol. Fire Co. No. 1 will be collecting items for hurricane relief

🌧️ Members of the NJ Aero Club will fly the donations south

Cody Coburn, a Toms River resident who owns Cody Construction, got a call from his sister living in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, about her fence being knocked down during Helene. He offered to go fix it. She sent him home security video footage showing the devastation from the storm.

Another video he saw shared online shows a family trapped on their roof. Fifteen minutes later, only the daughter was left standing, the rest of her family swept away by flood water. At least 180 people have died in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia.

"She was telling me about how many people haven't eaten or don't have insulin, or need this and that," Coburn told New Jersey 101.5. "That's where I was like, 'alright, let's kick this in the high gear.' So Wednesday, I woke up, I made a post, I shared it."

Now Coburn, an airplane club and a volunteer fire company in New Jersey are teaming up to collect specific items for residents of western North Carolina who lost their homes to Hurricane Helene.

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'Time to pay it forward'

One of the hardest-hit areas are the western parts of the Carolinas where thousands face the prospect of weeks-long power outages. Two interstate highways have been washed away, making bringing supplies in via truck difficult.

Coburn said he called his cousin on the board of the New Jersey Aero Club to arrange for a plane to fly donated items to the Carolinas. He committed to one plane.

"And then the next morning, he said 'Listen, I have six pilots. They're ready to fly six planes down there. We have the whole weekend cleared so that we can take these planes up and down, up and down.'"

Coburn said the planes will fly into Greenville Municipal Airport. A local company Happy Helicopters will use its 15 choppers along with two National Guard helicopters to drop baskets of items

One of the people who saw Coburn's post about the donations was Donna McDowell, a EMT with Surf City Volunteer Fire Co. 1. She thought about the people who helped the Jersey Shore recover from Superstorm Sandy.

"This area was impacted by Sandy. We had significant damage, but it is nothing compared to what they're going through, nothing. So, yeah, we felt like we should do something. I talked to our president. He said, 'Yeah, make it happen,'" McDowell said. "We had the outpouring of support in this area when Sandy came through was incredible. So now it's time to pay it forward."

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What to donate

McDowell contacted Coburn and went to Tuckerton Lumber which agreed to donate a pod-like storage area called a Surfbox. McDowell thinks she'll get enough donations to fill a tractor-trailer.

Specific items are being collected following Coburn's conversations with law enforcement and emergency response personnel.

Donations will be accepted Friday noon to 7 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., or until the Surfbox is full.

NJ’s Task Force 1 continues to work in the Asheville area conducting wide area searches and water rescue operations.

18 volunteers from Red Cross New Jersey are also in North Carolina.

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