Three drone pilots for a Hopkinsville-based company became a lifeline for people stranded in remote areas of North Carolina following Hurricane Helene.
“People have lost their livelihoods out here,” Jeff Clack said Thursday afternoon in a phone interview with Hoptown Chronicle. “They’ve lost family members. They’ve lost everything that they know on this planet. Everything that they have in life is gone.”
Clack, who is from Florida, was working with pilots from Alabama and Minnesota. All three are employees of Bestway Ag. The company manufactures and sells agriculture spraying and liquid hauling equipment. Headquartered in Hopkinsville, it also sells drones.
The drones that Bestway sells would normally be used to map fields, check crop health and spray crops, said Danny Vowell, the company’s marketing manager. But the drones also have capabilities that make them useful in a natural disaster. Thermal imaging allows the pilots to find people otherwise hidden under dense tree cover and inside their houses.
Clack and his co-workers arrived in North Carolina shortly after the storm struck. They were working day and night, he said, and shared a travel trailer that a friend in Florida loaned him.
They were able to locate more than a hundred people. In each case, they used a recorded message on a reconnaissance drone to ask questions about whether people need food, water and medicine. If they did, a larger drone capable of lifting up to 230 pounds will follow and make a supply drop.
People have been stranded because flooding and mudslides destroyed numerous roads and tore out bridges.
“We’re just trying to get people some relief,” said Clack.
The pilots coordinated with local emergency responders. Vowell said they were able to begin searching immediately because the Federation Aviation Administration authorized emergency registration paperwork for the drones.
The work feels meaningful, said Clack.
“It is emotional … there is a profound sense of accomplishment when I can just help people and do God’s work out here, and get them the supplies they need to keep pushing on and give them hope,” he said. “We know they are there. They know we are coming.”
Bestway, established by David Barbee, is headquartered in Hopkinsville and has locations in North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas and Oregon.
Clack and his team departed North Carolina on Saturday, Oct. 5. By Monday, he was keeping an eye on Hurricane Milton from his home in the Florida Panhandle. The Category 5 hurricane was projected to make landfall Wednesday at Tampa Bay.
(This story was updated to specify when Jeff Clack’s team finished their work in North Carolina.)
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
