Crawfordsville Regional Airport has had a busy week working with the Civilian Crisis Response Team. CCRT reached out to the airport seeking help with hurricane relief efforts. Two hurricanes have traveled through many southern states, Hurricane Helene last week and Milton this week.
Many people in Florida and North Carolina have been affected by the storms, which have caused chaos and destruction of homes and properties. There have been several floods and tornadoes through Florida. As of Thursday morning, six fatalities have been reported in Milton’s aftermath.
CCRT acted quickly, seeking as much help that they could find.
Crawfordsville didn’t disappoint. Lori Curless is the airport’s manager, she said she has been overwhelmed by the amount of donations received.
As of Thursday morning, the Crawfordsville community has donated 14,234 pounds of resources to be sent to CCRT in North Carolina.
“This is actually helping people. I want people to see the end result and understand the end result of their impact,” Curless said.
The airport was able to send five aircrafts to North Carolina, with a total of 2,100 pounds of donations.
The most urgent donations sent were medical supplies.
Curless said the process was hard, the airport was also keeping their regular schedule and duties on top of the hurricane relief efforts. Six staff members from the airport were dedicated to the relief duties.
She was able to be on one of the flights, along with her father, taking over 300 pounds on their trip. There, she was able to see the other side of the operation, meeting the other pilots and volunteers involved and seeing their reactions to the overwhelming amount of donations coming in.
“They were so over-the-top grateful for everything,” Curless said. “Knowing that these volunteers were there for over a week and they’re getting these thousands of pounds of donations, and a week later to still be as grateful as they are, was quite impressive to me.”
One donation that Curless said was so important and she was grateful for was pilot fuel. She said quite a few people from the community donated money to help with the exponential cost of flying the aircrafts to and from the donation drop-off areas.
Curless and the airport had a very important message for the community:
“The biggest thing is just telling the community thank you for what they did. All this couldn’t be possible without the community.”
The airport has completed their scheduled flights with donations, the remaining donations are set to be delivered by trucks.
