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Oct. 6, 2024 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
31:41
On-the-ground report from North Carolina helicopter hub by Steve Slepcevic...
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Welcome, everybody. We're joined today by Steve Slepcevich and some of his crew with SRP24 on the ground in North Carolina.
Welcome, gentlemen, and thank you for all that you're doing.
Steve, you want to give us a situation update there?
Yeah, so we're here at the Foothill Airport Regional Airport in North Carolina working these helicopter operations.
Providing medical assistance, food, water, and also the need for additional supplies that are coming as the winter months get colder.
This is Danel Jimenez.
He's been organizing all the helicopter operations and coordinating the flights, getting in and out of here.
So I figured he'd talk a little bit about what we're doing out here.
And then we also have John Knox, firefighter, paramedic.
Many people he's well-known.
Many people know who John Knox is.
I know John. And he can talk about...
Just the medical side of it and what's going on also on the ground, what's happening.
So with that being said, I'm going to let Danelle talk a little bit about what's going on currently.
Well, let me just preempt it by saying one of the questions people have is, are aircraft being grounded by FAA or FEMA? Currently at this location, no, that has not happened.
Now, that might be different in other locations that we have previously been at.
Right now, we're still flying missions and we're going to continue to do so until told otherwise.
Alright, so tell us what you're doing.
Are you loading up the helicopters with supplies and then finding a landing area?
And how do you know where to land or who needs help?
So there are several ways we're doing that.
There's a couple of different operations going on here.
We have fixed wing guys that are bringing in supplies and they're dropping it off at the hangar.
And then we have helicopter guys that are taking it out to these remote areas and dropping off to the end user.
We also have ground teams that are coming through here and getting supplies and taking it up as well.
So we're attacking this from many different directions.
The helicopter guys go out, and when they drop off supplies, they're also hitting up
other places on the way back to do some reconnaissance and figure out if other places need it.
Now, the good news is a lot of these reconnaissance are coming up saying, hey, look, we are good.
We don't need any more supplies.
So you can go somewhere else.
So that is good news for us.
So we're kind of just moving along with the situation and figuring out where we can do
the most good with these helicopter drops.
Thank you.
Okay, and as best you know, are you going to be able to continue to run the aircraft out of there and get this done?
Yes, I mean, there are many things that will affect us running the aircraft out here.
One of them is fuel, right? We run out of fuel, can't fly anymore.
The locations as well, you know, if it starts becoming, you know, if we start seeing that we are going to the same locations over and over again and they don't really need us, then we're going to move somewhere else.
But yes, as long as the need is still there, we're going to continue to fly.
Okay, and finally, what are you hearing from people when you do make contact with them?
Like, what are they needing the most?
Well, one of my gentlemen right here actually made contact this morning.
I'm going to let him talk about that, okay? Hey Mike, how are you doing?
How are you doing?
I'm good. I was out on a mission this morning.
We went up into the mountains, and that's the area that's really the hardest hit that we're seeing.
A lot of the communities have been cut off and along the river bottoms, they really had the hardest hit, the houses, those types of things lost.
But then the rest of the communities up in the mountains were all cut off.
From road closures, road slides, and that type of stuff.
So today what we saw, you know, really it appears that some of the roads are being reopened and there's actually ground access.
So we're also doing ground access into some of these areas to bring the supplies that they need.
Now what's happened, a lot of It's a lot of volunteer fire departments up there.
There's a lot of issues happening.
Lack of law enforcement, the systems are overwhelmed, and the fire departments have really taken They've taken charge, but they've taken a beating as well, and their fire stations, you know, are now depots.
And so they're really struggling on that aspect to, you know, their apparatus are outside.
They're not secure and, you know, they have all of these supplies.
And so now the issue is not so much that they need a ton of supplies up there, In some of the areas that I've been in, now there's some other areas that we're still assessing to see what they need.
But the problem is distribution of this.
And so we started to see in some of the areas that I was in earlier today, there's National Guard up there that are going to come in and they're going to start helping with distribution.
We've got some other organizations.
A lot of the communities come together out here and it's really...
We're putting their efforts into helping deliver into these mountain communities via ground.
But there are definite security issues with that.
So we have organizations that what we're understanding right now, I ran into one organization this morning.
Yeah, that is attempting to be associated with FEMA and they are not.
I just received some intel a few minutes ago that it's been vetted by the military that they are not associated with that.
So, you know, we're dealing with a lot of different issues out here right now, and it's just really fluid and constantly changing.
Absolutely. Okay, so here's a question I have for you.
Our first truckload of 10 pallets of food is now currently, it's crossed into, well, it's past Louisiana now.
It's only 750 miles away.
It's going to get there maybe in another day or so, maybe a day and a half.
Are you confident that you'll be able to distribute those to people in need by some means?
Yeah, absolutely. So, I had a conversation a little while ago with a person that's running the supply depot here at this location, and she has no problem taking those supplies that you're providing.
I just absolutely can't thank you enough for that.
You know, to get that...
Sorry, we got to move. There's a helicopter coming in.
So, She's going to take that food, and then we will get it distributed.
Right now, it looks like to be a ground is what we're looking at to get that up there.
Okay, I'm sorry you're breaking up a little bit.
I think you said you're confident.
Yeah, just since we're in the area, but yes, there's a hangar that's been secured.
And so that hangar that's been secured...
We'll be able to give you the actual drop of the connection, so it will get all loaded.
There are pallets, there are forklifts on it that will be able to get the stuff off the actual truck, so there won't be an issue there.
Yeah, we just want to ask about the medical situation and how many people have died from this, how many people are being saved, anything you can update us on the medical and health side.
Yeah. So, I mean, there's no official numbers, you know, and information is very difficult to get out.
As far as medical issues, you know, initially this was a rescue effort, and so we're, you know, just over a week right now.
And now it's moving into a recovery effort.
Definitely, in the beginning, there was a lot of medical issues.
One of the things that we see medical-wise is, you know, communities are cut off, right?
And so the problem comes with they don't...
One of the big issues is, like, insulin, right?
It has to be refrigerated. All the power is gone.
Walk over there. Tony's loading the aircraft right now.
So, like I said, is the...
Ability to keep medications refrigerated that are perishable.
So they've had issues with that.
We haven't seen a lot of injuries in that aspect, but I know we were just talking with...
National Guard who was doing some swift water stuff in the beginning.
And, you know, all of that has slowed down at this point.
And as far as right now, so what we're doing is we are going and, you know, we go out and we do recon missions and then we will find Whether it's fire departments or the hospitals or local clinics up there, because they've been cut off, what it is that they need in the way of supplies, medical supplies, whether it's medications, so on and so forth.
In front of the helicopter.
Yep. And then...
They always be in front of the helicopter, okay?
And then we will get those delivered to them, either via helicopter or via ground.
Sorry. Okay. So Mike, just real quick, just to give you a quick thing on it.
Yeah, go ahead. So right now, this is another run that's actually happening right now.
So I just want to... Here, Tony, one of our paramedics, so just give them a quick rundown on the run you're making right now.
So we're bringing some medical supplies, doing some drop-offs, checking different facilities to see what kind of medical supplies they need, what kind of support they need, extra materials.
Right now, we've got two different boxes of cold insulin because there's a lot of people out there with diabetical issues.
But we've got to also go back here in case we have to do some IVs and fluids and stuff like that.
We also say about oxygen?
No, just as far as oxygen, some people are low on oxygen.
Oh, exactly. There's a lot of people.
We've got a generator right here. Also, we have oxygen that fuels the oxygen canisters and everything.
That runs on power for electrical, so that'll keep them going.
And yeah, we've got a low down of Back and forth materials and locations that we're going to.
That's about it. Yep. We're also assessing the needs when we get on the ground for further support.
So we're shuffling information back and forth from these cutoff areas so we could get them the further resources they need.
Okay. All right.
Fantastic. I was asking, are there still wounded people being found, or have all the wounded pretty much been evacuated at this point?
No, that's still being found, but it's becoming less and less.
Obviously, we're going into, what is it, day eight now?
Starting to lose track of time.
But if anything that I can tell you that I have to, is that if people don't realize that these people, once they got cut off, The most difficult, most extreme challenge of finding the people and where the need was that was the communications.
It was complete darkness, right?
So I cannot emphasize how critical because one of the things I immediately did was I picked up a bank of RSAT radios that we carry among all our teams, ground support, and also the FOB for our commanders to be able to have that type of stuff.
Logistically, to be able to communicate and move things around the ground and the air so everybody was on one thing on a dashboard so we knew exactly where everybody was traveling.
But it would have been extremely life-saving that if people actually step, stop, go out and go get a sat phone.
And I can't tell you how important that is.
I mean, Tina Blanco, and I'm going to give her a shout out, you know, because I want to give credit where credit's due.
She continues to deliver in the first response and the first responder world so that we have the ability to communicate.
I can't tell you how many search and rescue teams out here that we've come across that we've actually handed sat phones to that she's donated for them to be able to communicate what they're doing on the ground with us, what we're doing in the air.
So that the speed of response for the medical, the food, the water, everything else that's coming in.
So if anybody learned anything from the storm, help us by actually getting your comms in order.
Get a sat phone because if the grid goes down, if the power goes down, if you can't make a call, and if you saw what happened on the whole Verizon thing, the AT&T thing, all these glitches or whatever it may be, it's time.
People need to really have that as the one most important factor because chaos is only controlled by good communication.
Absolutely. I want to give credit to the satellite phone store, sat123.com.
They are our sponsor, but that's almost irrelevant at this point.
They've just been giving out lots of phones and gear and free minutes and money also to help everybody.
And this proves the need for satellite phones.
Sat123. Also, Steve, your company, SRP24.com, I understand that you are also, you've spent a lot of money on this, and you have a donation button somewhere that people can help.
Oh, it's on your website. I see it.
Yeah, that's very kind of you.
I mean, you know, we've never stood that up in 35 years that I've been doing this, but this became a humanitarian aid.
We weren't contracted. We simply spun up the airports and started running our ops and just basically answering the calls.
So, yeah. As these pilots started coming in, we just started paying with our credit cards, started maxing everything out, which has been a blessing, right?
You just go. And actually, Tina was the one who said to me, Steve, there's an issue.
And I said, what's the issue? And she's like, you know, do you believe in God?
And I said, yeah. She goes, well, doesn't God say, ask and ye shall receive?
And I'm like, Tina, yeah.
Yeah. So it's the first time and I've been overwhelmed and overjoyed because it's just allowed us to just really fund these guys with their planes and pay for the fuel and pay for the helicopter pilots and fund the operation, pay the paramedics that are coming in, that we've vetted, that we know are credible.
And so they all have their credentials.
Everybody's squared away.
We aren't a rogue operation.
We do this privately. We just knew that once Tallahassee didn't happen, the team had to push up here and work with the people of North Carolina.
It's people coming together.
And the amount of organizations, the FOBs that have been hospitable and super kind to open their doors and allow the independent pilots, all that came together, And the ground crews, it's just been, it's been really heartwarming to see how we the people of our country really came together to turn this off around.
And, you know, you start seeing military assets for the first time starting to really kind of come in yesterday and more today.
But this was pretty much a civilian run disaster response operation.
Yeah, absolutely. And I just can't thank you enough for all that you're doing there.
Now tell me, how much fuel are you going through there?
And also, people don't realize helicopters are very expensive to operate per flight hour.
There's a lot of money that goes into the maintenance, the parts, the inspections.
How much fuel are you going through?
Well, I mean, the big helicopters, the heavy crane lifts are about $1,500 a run.
$1,400, $1,500 a run on the fuel.
So that's been nonstop.
And you have the smaller ones that's running $500, typically $500, $600 of fuel load.
And that's just nonstop.
So, you know, listen.
If we fall short, how we fall short, we'll be fine.
We're always fine. So I appreciate that.
I appreciate what you're doing by bringing the food out here because when I went over to the hangar and I shared with them about the pallets coming and they're like, oh, that's awesome.
Because they're asking for MREs and I'm like, well, this isn't MREs.
This is like going to a five-star restaurant versus getting a...
A cheeseburger at a Whataburger.
No, not against Whataburger, but you know what I'm saying.
It's a very different approach.
So they were absolutely in gratitude.
It's a lot easier because we can load them on the aircraft and get them out there.
They're quick, they're easy, and everyone should have that as part of their gear, along with their sat phone.
A purification system for water.
Share the food with everybody there, and in advance, tell them to get some salt and pepper, and they're going to need to boil water, because many of the dried goods, you have to boil water, and you need some kind of salt added to it, typically.
Yeah. Just make sure you've got the ability to do that.
But the nice thing is these are waterproof.
They're rugged. You can beat them up.
They won't damage them.
There's no cardboard. There's nothing to get waterlogged.
That's awesome. It's really perfect for the situation.
That's awesome. That's what's needed.
That's what's really needed. Yeah, you'll see them.
And I'll talk to you offline about we've got a lot more, many more pallets, and I want to know if you can take them all or if I need to send to another distribution point.
I mean, we've had a huge response, and it's a lot more than 10.
I think we're going to be sending another 25 pallets next week, this coming week.
Yeah, so just communicate with me because the thing you want to do is they got to go to specific hubs, right?
So people need to know that they're clear of where the hub is, what they're receiving, what's going in because during Katrina, I don't know if you know, they were burning warehouses full of stuff because they got too many goods and it was too expensive for them to distribute it out, right?
So Just check in with me.
I'll tell you which hubs are receiving stuff.
I'll put you in touch with that hub.
And it's always moving dynamically, right?
There's a bunch of truckers moving some stuff in.
There's the off-road, professional off-road racing groups that are coming in here.
So we're working on their ground ops to help them find the location.
I gave them three great launch locations.
I also connected them with the satellite phone stores with the beacons on their stuff so they're able to connect.
Listen, also, Elon Musk has done an incredible job.
This place was completely off the grid, and his Starlink and him donating all the Starlinks, and we've been putting them out every day.
I mean, one day alone was over 500.
Today, there was probably 120, 130 that went out, just because not all locations needed.
But as they were getting done, they were getting X'd off.
This place has it.
This volunteer fire department has it.
This volunteer fire department has it.
This location has it.
This church has it. So...
Man, there's some people that really stepped up in the private world.
And I mean, you just start looking at it.
Look at how Maui was. I mean, these things are becoming disasters that are, the response is coming from the American people.
And then when FEMA shows up, and I'm just saying like it is, this is not me saying it.
It's just based on results.
We're here on the ground, right?
And if you're not here, you're not here.
If you're here, maybe speed up the process a little bit, you know, and let's start cutting through the red tape.
This is not a right or left thing.
This is not a political thing. This is an American thing.
Let's just go fix it. It's broken.
Okay, we're having obviously major bandwidth issues there, but we heard a lot from Steve Slepsovich there, srp24.com.
So let me just add that the situation, as I'm aware of it, and I've got other contacts on the ground, there's also a Texas group that I know very well that is en route practically there by now.
The situation is as follows.
There's a ton of supplies rolling in now.
Lots of supplies in the staging areas.
The challenge is local distribution, kind of last mile distribution from the staging areas into the hands of the people.
And there are still a lot of people trapped, not just in the mountains, but trapped because roads, you know, and trees on roads.
The clearing of roads is going to take weeks more.
So there's a lot of people that are trapped and airdrops for many people are still the only way to get there.
Other people you can get in, you know, with an ATV or a side-by-side or even a regular vehicle or a regular truck.
Okay, but... The situation is still very dire.
All your support is greatly appreciated.
And if you can support SRP24.com, of course, they're going to burn it on fuel.
And the helicopter owners are burning their own cash.
It's very expensive to fly, especially helicopters.
Very expensive. Every hour in the air is, I don't know, at least $500 in maintenance beyond the fuel.
And there's also inspections and so much more than that.
So... Well, I thank you for all your support.
If you want to get some more supplies...
I'm sorry, I'm checking multiple things at once here.
If you want to get more supplies for yourself and also help others, healthrangerstore.com slash relief is the page.
We are now at over $300,000 in food supplies that have been...
The donations have been raised by our customers.
Thank you so much for that.
God bless you all. And we're getting those out.
And then also... Call the satellite phone store if you don't yet have a sat phone.
SAT123.com.
Yes, they're our sponsor, but I have that relationship with them because they are helping so many Americans in these times of need.
No backup comms, no internet.
What do you do? Satellite phone saves your life.
Satellite phone helps you make a call, get help, get supplies, let people know if you have a medical emergency or you need evacuation.
Satellite phone is what accomplishes that.
So visit them at sat123.com.
I'm going to wrap this up here and see if I can reach Slapsovich through some other means.
But thank you for listening. God bless you all.
Take care. We all need to do our part to help the disaster victims in Kentucky, Florida, North and South Carolina and Georgia.
Many victims are flooded out there, completely flooded out.
They've got no food and no water, no electricity.
They're not even expected to have a water supply for over a month.
So I want to tell you what we're doing at healthrangerstore.com because we do have food supplies.
We have intentionally stocked up on supplies.
What we're doing to get those supplies into the hands of people in need and also how you can help us and help yourself at the same time.
So first, we had already committed a couple of pallets of our food donations and we're currently organizing transport and also working to find the correct staging area.
We got to get it from our warehouse in Texas to the staging area in, well, Asheville is the current one we're trying to get closest to.
But we also decided, we had a lot of people ask, how can we help?
There are various fundraisers out there.
If you donate money to the various fundraisers, make sure it's legit.
There could be scams out there.
But what we are doing is a buy one, gift one arrangement, where if you go to healthrangerstore.com slash relief, Just type that in, healthrangerstore.com slash relief, and you'll find this page.
You buy one food bucket, and we will donate an additional bucket to disaster victims that are impacted by Helene.
And as you can see here, the Ranger buckets, and we've got other food buckets.
I've also got some on my desk here.
If you could show those, just a little selection of what we have.
And what's in these buckets are what we call food bricks.
So this is what one of the bricks looks like.
It's vacuum-packed.
It's nitrogen-flooded and vacuum-packed in a very rugged, long-term, storable, and waterproof format, which is really outstanding for the kind of emergencies that people are facing right now.
These are lentils here.
Again, food bricks. And inside the buckets, there are many, many of these food bricks.
Chia seeds and we have cashews that can be eaten immediately.
Where many of the items that we are sending, of course, you need to boil water.
So you need to have some way to boil water in order to make a soup or to cook the beans or cook the lentils.
Add some salt if you can have that.
So it's not instant, you know, ready to eat meals, except for the cashews and some of the other nuts and almonds and things that we have.
For most of it, it does require boiling water.
However, this is certified organic, laboratory tested food, and we have a significant supply here that we can donate.
So if you buy food for yourself...
Every bucket that you buy, we will donate the same bucket or an equivalent bucket if we run out of those buckets, or we also reserve the right to donate cash that's equivalent to the value of the bucket in case we don't have the inventory to actually support this.
So right now, go to healthrangerstore.com slash relief.
You can choose any of our food buckets here.
We have many different materials in these rugged polyethylene buckets.
We've even got some here on the second page right here.
So you can choose any of these buckets, mega buckets, or ranger buckets as they're called, and we will then...
Oh, and this is through October 7th, Monday at midnight.
So everything that you buy from us through this program, buy one, gift one, through Monday, October 7th at midnight, we will then arrange for the donation, either, again, buckets, equivalent buckets, or cash.
If we run out of buckets, we will bring you photographs of our donation, and technically this donation is being made through our new church.
So, you know, we're going to have all the documentation internally for anybody who ever wants to verify what we're doing.
But our commercial operation is donating this to our church, the Church of Natural Abundance, and this is actually the very first opportunity for the church to help out, and the church will make these donations and coordinate with proper transport companies to get these into the hands of people there, in Asheville, in West Tennessee, in the areas that are affected by these floods.
FEMA doesn't seem to be doing much, and the White House isn't really helping at all.
Trump has shown up there.
I don't think Kamala or Biden, and the corporate media is just ignoring this.
They've abandoned the American people.
Even though we're giving seemingly unlimited money to Ukraine and to Israel to fight more wars, the American people are being forgotten and abandoned by our own government.
And so it comes down to us.
It's we the people.
It's our churches, our ministries, our commercial operations.
We're going to have to help out and people are helping out by the tens of thousands in any way that we can.
And since this is our infrastructure, We manufacture food.
We have long-term storable food.
This is what we do.
Then this is what we're going to contribute.
And with your help, we can contribute many, many pallet loads to the people who are impacted in that area.
Just gift them this food and help them get good nutrition, clean food, and help bring some warmth into their hearts to know that America cares about them, the American people.
Yeah, your government has probably forgotten you from the federal level, Now, state governors, especially DeSantis, is doing a great job in Florida.
Some state governments are doing what they can.
Local governments are doing what they can.
But the federal government has forgotten you.
But we, the people, we have not forgotten you.
We are going to step up here and do our part.
And that's what we're doing.
HealthRangersStore.com slash relief.
Again, every bucket that you buy, we will gift everything.
Either the same bucket or a similar bucket of same value to the people impacted by these storms.
I mean, this is going to be a lot of cash outflow for us.
We don't make anything on this.
There's not 100% markup on this food, trust me.
Not even close to that.
Food markup and food margins are really quite thin compared to many other product categories.
So this is this is us putting our infrastructure our inventory our food and our wallets
You know on the line to help these people who deserve our help
They have been abandoned and we have to let them know that you are not forgotten
we'll step up and help you in any way we can and so so shop health ranger store comm slash relief load up on
buckets for yourself and We'll send buckets of food
Again certified organic lab tested food all these amazing ingredients. We'll send them to those in need
And then you can be ready for the next tragedy that comes, the next natural disaster, the next flood, the next fire, the next storm, whatever that happens to be.
You can be prepared at the same time.
This is the time to stock up, especially with the longshoremen going on strike.
Supply chains breaking down.
War breaking out in the Middle East, even worse now.
Energy prices are going to spike.
Transport prices are going to spike.
Supply chains are breaking down.
As we realize, you know, a storm, a flood, something can just happen just like that.
And there are people there who didn't even have three or four days of food.
They had no water, no food.
They are in a very bad situation.
Some of them are getting desperate. Looting has broken out.
So if you can get yourself squared away with supplies that you need to be more insulated from these natural disasters, then you're going to be more stable.
You're going to be able to help more people around you.
And that's the mission that we are working to help fulfill.
So shop now, healthrangerestore.com slash relief.
Pick up whatever buckets you want for yourself.
We'll ship them to you. And then we'll load up the same number of buckets or equivalent items to ship to the people in need in Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia as well.
So thank you all for your support.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of brighttown.com and healthrangerstore.com, and we are doing the best we can to help those people in need in this dire situation.
And also check out our church website at abundance.church, because this is actually our first donation activity through our church.
And this is the mission of our church, is to bring emergency food rescue packs to people in need and to help alleviate famine and hunger and to help boost nutrition wherever we can.
So we didn't expect the church to be called on so quickly, and yet, you know, here we are.
So we're doing the best we can.
Thank you for your support.
God bless you all. Take care.
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