The Manifest

How do you write about a disaster? I’m not talking about my love life or the White House. I’m talking about an actual disasters. These fucking nuisances are a real problem these days. Three of them to be exact and their names are Harvey, Irma, and Maria.

Ten years without any major hurricanes hitting the U.S. and then, BAM! three of these bastards come out of the dregs of Africa to unleash hell throughout the Caribbean and Gulf all within a couple of months.

We had a few close calls the last couple years as we watched the Bahamas take those storms right on the nose. FEMA wasn’t there, there were no celebrity hotlines, and business stateside carried as usual. For me and my pilot brethren, this was unacceptable. We loaded our planes with as much supplies as possible and were the first planes on the ground. In fact, I cut my teeth flying those missions. I went from being a novice pilot to storm eagle in two weeks. We owned the sky and the Bahamas gave us carte blanche. We didn’t even have to clear customs enabling us to fly more missions.

This year, following the second hurricane, Irma, we encountered a much different experience. The moment we could take off from Lantana and head down to the Keys, we loaded the plane with as much leftover supplies as possible and departed. Half way down there we asked talked to Miami radio who told us that no airports were open and that the airspace was restricted. We continued anyways.

A little further down the keys, we listened to the search and rescue operators talk on the radios. They were operating out of Marathon airport about halfway down to Key West. We asked if we could land but no one could give us a solid answer. Turns out the imbeciles were just disorganized to know any better, but we didn’t know any better so we just circled around shot some footage of the devastation and returned home.

The next day, I made a bunch of phone calls to the aviation offices in Miami after I saw a letter from the Monroe County commissioner stating that the Key West airport was open to relief flights. They didn’t know what was going on and told us they couldn’t give us permission to fly down there. Disgruntled at this response, I decide to just go for it. I was going to just fly down to Key West and see if they were open.

As it turns out, they were. We only reached them on radio about 15 miles out because they were using a handheld and they gave us permission to land. On the ground, the fire department came out and asked what took us so long? I told them the runaround we were getting and they told us to try to spread the word. They were appreciative of the water and supplies that we brought that I couldn’t help but think, we would’ve been here an entire day earlier.

The next morning we got down there dropped our load and prepared to take off when two Navy chinook helicopters carrying 1000 MRE’s and tons of water landed. We were no longer necessary. It took the military 3 days to mobilize and get supplies down there. We were ready to go day one.

Next time, I’m not asking for permission to do the right thing and just going.