No, FEMA didn’t block hurricane relief flights at South Carolina airport

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been a frequent target of criticism since Hurricane Helene made landfall Sept. 26 in northwest Florida and left a trail of destruction across six southeastern states.

"FEMA has flown in like 10 or more helicopters and blocked a runway here at Greenville Downtown, completely took over, or almost took over, the operation," a man in an Oct. 6 Instagram video said. "Just because they’re doing some good here, FEMA’s going to come try to stop it."

The video showed several helicopters parked on a runway, and the man said they were "all flown in by FEMA helicopter pilots." The man said there were 30 or more planes leaving a day earlier to carry supplies to Asheville (North Carolina) and other areas and "FEMA came in and halted that operation."

We found the same video shared in other social media posts, including a TikTok video that had nearly 340,000 views on Oct. 7.

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.  (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

A runway was temporarily closed and donation flights were halted at Greenville Downtown Airport in South Carolina, which the man in the video referred to. But the runway closure didn’t hinder relief flights and passenger flights didn’t stop because of FEMA, an airport spokesperson and the organizers of those flights said. (Greenville, South Carolina, is 22 miles west of the North Carolina state line.)

(Instagram screenshot)

We contacted the Instagram account on which the video appeared to have originated and received no response. On Oct. 7, we found the video wasn’t visible on that Instagram page. But on a separate post from the account, commenters criticized the content creator for spreading misinformation. The helicopters were not from FEMA and were on call for medical airlifts, one commenter said.

But here’s what we learned had happened.

Community organizers and airport tenants looking to help survivors in hard-hit western North Carolina started a social media page called the Runway Relief Project to share information about efforts to collect and fly donations of supplies where they’re needed.

The response was so successful that the group said Oct. 6 on Facebook that it had "received all the donation(s) we can handle" at the airport and was no longer accepting them. In a separate Facebook video, the group countered false rumors that FEMA is the reason it halted plane flights of the donations.

"Please understand that FEMA did not make that happen," said Tracy Roberts, one of two women in the video.

The flights ended because there was no more need after Oct. 4 for planes to pick up supplies, Roberts said. "This is 100% not anything to do with FEMA."

Roberts said in the video that FEMA was at the airport only for medical reasons and the group has had no contact with the federal agency. We contacted the Runway Relief Project for comment but received no response.

A person identified as Isaiah from Happy Helicopter Tours, an airport tenant involved in the relief efforts, said in an Oct. 6 Facebook video that the company was pausing donations at the airport because of a backlog.

"There's a rumor that different organizations have shut us down, or tried to. That is absolutely not true," he said. "The Greenville Downtown Airport has been super with our support and no one is shutting us down. We’re just going into phase two."

Greenville Downtown Airport Public Relations Director Robert Hoover told PolitiFact that an infrequently used, secondary runway at the airport was closed for three days because a FEMA-contracted medical group was operating there.

"The rumor this person posted, in no way, shape or form, is that accurate," Hoover said. "We have never ceased operations, as far as at the airport. Nor has FEMA played any role in ceasing any operations at the Greenville Downtown Airport." 

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Hoover said as roads reopen, it makes more logistical sense to move supplies in trucks rather than in planes because trucks can carry more.

Hoover said FEMA itself is not at the airport and its contractor is no longer there because it called to a different disaster site.

Global Medical Response, a medical transportation company, parked several of its helicopters dedicated to emergency response at the airport, Public Relations Director Kirsten Gurmendi said. Global Medical Response owns American Medical Response, which is FEMA’s prime EMS/ambulance contractor, with contracts in 48 states, its website says.

"These are assets requested by FEMA through (the) American Medical Response Office of Emergency Management," Gurmendi said.

Gurmendi described the helicopters as "flying ICUs" dedicated to patient care and transport. They are on call to provide care and transport at a moment’s notice and crew include nurses, paramedics and pilots, she said. They are also used for search and rescue operations.

Gurmendi said it was the airport management’s decision to close the runway because it is rarely used and wouldn’t hinder operations at the airport.

"Those flights continued as the video was taken," Gurmendi said. "Our dedicated crews are there to help address medical needs, and our readiness was not interfering with other air traffic at that airport in any way."

An Instagram video said that FEMA closed a runway at a Greenville, South Carolina, airport and halted flights of donated supplies to hurricane victims.

Organizers arranging the donations and flights said that flights were halted because enough donations had arrived to meet disaster needs for now. The decision did not involve FEMA. An airport spokesperson said a secondary runway was closed for three days for a FEMA contractor, but that closure didn’t affect flights in or out of the airport.

We rate the claim False.