Miss Montana crew helps in Bahamas

Editor's Note: John Haines is a graduate of Plains High School who was one of the volunteers accompanying the Miss Montana plane to the Bahamas.

by John O. Haines

First of all, on behalf of the crew of the Miss Montana plane and volunteers of the Museum of Mountain Flying – apologies for not making the trip to Thompson Falls nearly two weeks ago. We do look forward to making up for it in the near future. The reason we couldn't make the trip was we felt we could lend a hand in hurricane Dorian recovery efforts in the Bahamas. With that goal in mind and with the confidence gained from successfully flying a 75-year-old C-47 (DC-3) to Europe and back to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the 70th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift, we felt we could add to NC-24320's history of service.

A group of nine volunteers and one operational museum piece of an airplane left Missoula on the evening of Saturday, September 14, and landed at the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport in Florida on morning of September 16 with a few stops along the way.

By John O. Haines

We were greeted by volunteers organizing supplies to be sent to the Bahamas and what felt like a wall of Florida's relentless heat and humidity. The volunteers had filled a large hangar with a variety of donated supplies and several planes were already making multiple flights a day to the Bahamas with much needed supplies.

The crew of Miss Montana teamed up with Operation BBQ Relief (OBR). This group started in 2011 and delivers barbecue meals to those dealing with large-scale natural disasters. To date, they have supplied food to those facing the effects of floods, fires, hurricanes and tornadoes.

In the days following Hurricane Dorian, OBR was faced with an unfamiliar challenge - it was difficult, if not impossible, to cook the meals on-site in the Bahamas. The prepared meals needed to be flown in daily from Fort Lauderdale to even come close to meeting the demand. Miss Montana provided the unique answer to the challenge. OBR could now deliver 10,000 meals per flight and two flights a day was an easily attainable goal with a durable plane that can handle short, beat-up runways.

The meals are flown over in Styrofoam boxes. Each box contains one type of food and can serve about 200 people. They are sturdy and can be cleaned and reused by OBR or utilized by the people who received the meals. We helped load the six pallets of food for each trip and suffice it to say, the 75-year-old plane has rarely smelled better. With the meals comes a sense of dignity for the victims of Hurricane Dorian. The meals are hot, delicious and packed with proteins and carbohydrates needed to stay healthy in stressful situations. There are also a variety of foods offered from day to day.

The Miss Montana plane flew into Freeport Airport, which was hit hard, but many of the people receiving food there came from Abaco Island. We spoke with U.S. Coast Guard personnel and a volunteer EMT from Wyoming. They said that Abaco is uninhabitable and could take years to recover. It is hard to imagine losing everything. Many survivors lost family, homes and even records of their existence such as birth and marriage certificates.

Other than missing a fly-in in Thompson Falls, you might be wondering what other connections the Miss Montana crew has to Sanders County. The pilots with family in the area are Eric Komberec, Art Dykstra and Frank Moss. Frank Moss lives in Florida but his wife grew up in Dixon and was known as Kamila Spicer back in the day. John Haines was also on the flight and able to help load the plane and run errands between flights.

Miss Montana and her crew are able to work out of Florida for a total of 30 days, but the schedule isn't set in stone. For more information please follow us on Miss Montana to Normandy and Beyond and Operation BBQ Relief on Facebook.