CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. — As Florida braces for Hurricane Milton, North Carolina is still dealing with the devastation of Hurricane Helene. FEMA has been criticized for its slow response in that area.  For many survivors, the first help they got came from regular people — private pilots in small planes and helicopters who either brought them to safety or dropped off supplies. One of those pilots was from right here in Rochester.

Dennis Kelly is a utility lineman by trade so, he’s seen and responded to natural disasters for decades to help restore power.

“I got the opportunity to become a helicopter lineman, that’s how I got stuck on aviation, I just fell in love with it right away,” he tells News10NBC. “I went out and got my fixed wing license in 2017, I’ve done real well in business and I bought a helicopter and then got my add-on for a helicopter license and have been flying helicopters for the last two years.”

Initially, he was contacted by a friend on social media who knew he was a pilot.

“He reached out and his parents and their friend, one was 90, 89 and 87 years old…they were stuck on the top of Beach Mountain, they had no food, no water and they were almost out of their medicine so, in five minutes we packed up a couple book bags, got in the helicopter and started our way down to North Carolina,” Kelly says. 

Kelly and his girlfriend Kat had to make an emergency landing on the way down due to bad weather but made it safely to Beach Mountain to rescue the three seniors. When they landed back at the local airport, they knew they wanted to do more. They hooked up with an organization called Operation Airdrop.  Along with dozens of other volunteer pilots, they brought people what they needed to survive for the next eight days. 

“I delivered oxygen, insulin, medical kits, generators, gasoline, food, MREs… you name it, I delivered it,” Kelly says. “we landed in parking lots, in fields, landing in people’s front yards, churches… anywhere you could find a spot to land, you were landing. We delivered a lot of Starlinks so people could communicate. I delivered probably 30-40 Starlinks to different communities, they were trying to get them to all of the fire departments, anywhere where people gathered.”

For many of the survivors, it was the first help they received.

“I’m talking day one when I got down there for every 50 private civilian aircraft there might have been one government aircraft,” Kelly says. “Whether it be a Chinook or a Blackhawk, really, really big helicopters that just couldn’t get in there.  Sure, they were evacuating people from campuses and nursing homes or something like that, they were there but it was so limited,” he recalls. 

Kelly says he kept thinking he would make his way home the next day.

“I stayed a very long time because every time I went and did a mission, it was just like man, I can’t leave, I can’t leave these people. There was nothing, they had nothing, complete towns washed out, 215 buildings in one town, every one of them was gone,” he says. 

This is the first time Kelly has used his personal aircraft for a volunteer mission and he feels like its changed his life.

“I will say this, humanity still exists. A lot of Americans came together from all walks of life and it was pretty amazing to see everybody. When we landed people were beyond happy… there was people day six I’m still landing and they haven’t heard from anybody in six days,” Kelly says. “It was Americans helping Americans for sure and it was awesome to see.”

More than 100 people died as a result of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. Overall, the storm has killed at least 231 people across six states.

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