Having spent the week prior to the hurricane working with local churches (St Peter in BPK and The Vineyard), AOPA and Aerobridge to set up charity flights either OUT of Summerland Key if Irma hit the Bahamas or into Summerland Key Airport if it hit the Keys, and then managing the use of our airfield for relief flights during the subsequent weeks, I’m genuinely surprised I’ve never met Surrey or her pilots. Perhaps it’d be worth a call to the owners and/or Airport Manager (me) of Summerland Key Cove Airport before printing a story like this?
This is the biggest load of shit article I have read in weeks. If anyone believes a single word of this, I have job openings for the tunnel between Key West and Cuba that need to be filled.
While the article regrettably does have some inaccuracies, it is NOT what you claim. My name is Maggie Whitcomb and I am a co-founder (with Surrey Westrupp, Tim Sorenson and Taylor Fontenot) of Crisis Relief Team. We are very real people who did very useful things in the Lower Keys post Irma.
This article is a slap in the face to the local and non-local volunteers who actually did create a multi-state relief effort. This article is full of inaccurate information. First, you’re not local if don’t live here! Both Maggie and Surrey don’t even live full-time in keys! I can tell you these people do not know anything about aviation, Summerland airport, or the coordinated relief effort actually that took place out of Summerland. You can’t land at Summerland airport without permission! That’s trespassing! It’s a private airport! You don’t schedule flights into Summerland with Ms. Modi in Homestead?!? “Volunteers were sleeping in hangars.” What? The only hangars on Summerland are those that are part of people’s homes. The only people allowed to do that had permission from the homeowners. The airport manager was there clearing the debris from the runway so aircraft could land and helping to coordinate ACTUAL RELIEF EFFORT with Aerobridge, Military forces, Red Cross, etc. The author, Pru Sowers, should be ashamed of publishing this fallacious article!!!
In an Oct. 12 story in Konk Life about a local relief effort that started after Hurricane Irma hit the Florida Keys, Yogini Modi is the Fixed Base Operator at Miami Homestead General Aviation Airport, not the Summerland Key Cove Airport. Also, Surrey Westrupp and Maggie Whitcomb, the subjects of the story, were not the only volunteers using Summerland Airport to fly supplies into the Keys. The owners of the airport organized a relief effort that was aided by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and AERObridge, the private aviation organization that coordinates donated aircraft to ferry supplies to emergency response teams in disaster areas.
Having spent the week prior to the hurricane working with local churches (St Peter in BPK and The Vineyard), AOPA and Aerobridge to set up charity flights either OUT of Summerland Key if Irma hit the Bahamas or into Summerland Key Airport if it hit the Keys, and then managing the use of our airfield for relief flights during the subsequent weeks, I’m genuinely surprised I’ve never met Surrey or her pilots. Perhaps it’d be worth a call to the owners and/or Airport Manager (me) of Summerland Key Cove Airport before printing a story like this?
This is the biggest load of shit article I have read in weeks. If anyone believes a single word of this, I have job openings for the tunnel between Key West and Cuba that need to be filled.
While the article regrettably does have some inaccuracies, it is NOT what you claim. My name is Maggie Whitcomb and I am a co-founder (with Surrey Westrupp, Tim Sorenson and Taylor Fontenot) of Crisis Relief Team. We are very real people who did very useful things in the Lower Keys post Irma.
https://www.facebook.com/crisisreliefteam/videos/156531718277197/
This article is a slap in the face to the local and non-local volunteers who actually did create a multi-state relief effort. This article is full of inaccurate information. First, you’re not local if don’t live here! Both Maggie and Surrey don’t even live full-time in keys! I can tell you these people do not know anything about aviation, Summerland airport, or the coordinated relief effort actually that took place out of Summerland. You can’t land at Summerland airport without permission! That’s trespassing! It’s a private airport! You don’t schedule flights into Summerland with Ms. Modi in Homestead?!? “Volunteers were sleeping in hangars.” What? The only hangars on Summerland are those that are part of people’s homes. The only people allowed to do that had permission from the homeowners. The airport manager was there clearing the debris from the runway so aircraft could land and helping to coordinate ACTUAL RELIEF EFFORT with Aerobridge, Military forces, Red Cross, etc. The author, Pru Sowers, should be ashamed of publishing this fallacious article!!!
In an Oct. 12 story in Konk Life about a local relief effort that started after Hurricane Irma hit the Florida Keys, Yogini Modi is the Fixed Base Operator at Miami Homestead General Aviation Airport, not the Summerland Key Cove Airport. Also, Surrey Westrupp and Maggie Whitcomb, the subjects of the story, were not the only volunteers using Summerland Airport to fly supplies into the Keys. The owners of the airport organized a relief effort that was aided by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and AERObridge, the private aviation organization that coordinates donated aircraft to ferry supplies to emergency response teams in disaster areas.