Greg Biffle chats with Shannon Spake to talk about the relief efforts he, Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and others are participating in to help victims of Hurricane Helene
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00:00So while we were all enjoying the race on Sunday, there were millions of people who were coming to the reality of the devastation that Helene had left in its path.
00:09A lot of folks in Western Carolina just really digging out of the rubble and the devastation.
00:14And Greg Biffle, of course, he's an Xfinity Series champion, a Truck Series champion, a Hall of Fame nominee.
00:20But this weekend, he was taking his helicopter and going and helping deliver supplies, helping to rescue some of those folks.
00:26And Greg, I really appreciate you popping in to talk to us right now because we were just talking.
00:32I don't think that this is getting enough attention as it should be.
00:35And I know that you and a handful of others, including your wife, Christina, were really kind of lending a hand and trying to help those folks out there.
00:43What prompted you guys to start this initiative in the first place?
00:47Well, really, what prompted is I got a Facebook message that there was a family stranded up in the mountains in an Airbnb with young kids.
00:55And, you know, as you know, people that rent Airbnbs don't have, you know, days or weeks worth of food or canned food available.
01:02So it started to become apparent right away that that they weren't the only ones.
01:07And so that brought attention to, you know, the situation and the scale of the situation is just, to be honest with you, I don't even know how to put it into words.
01:18Because you think about from Georgia to North Carolina, to Tennessee, all the way to Virginia, my rock mine in Speedwell, Virginia, just outside of Withville, got devastated, wiped out.
01:32The bridge is gone.
01:34There's there's there's all kinds of damage, but there's nobody stranded.
01:40So just the widespread amount of devastation that's going on.
01:46And the problem is those mountain communities all over the roads are completely washed out off the side of the mountain.
01:53The road does not exist anymore in or out.
01:57And it's not one area.
01:59It's not Asheville.
02:00It's not, you know, Banner Elk.
02:03It's all the way from the state line to the state line.
02:06So it is a huge undertaking that that there's just the scale of this is incredible how many people are stranded.
02:16Were you able to get to that family?
02:19We actually I got within about eight miles of being able to reach the family and the weather just came down on me, got got down right on top of the mountain.
02:29And we tried three ways in and I wasn't able to reach them.
02:33But I found out somebody else was able to get in from the other side and got that family out.
02:40So they were able to get out and we were able to evacuate several other families and took in supplies and things you don't think about, propane tanks.
02:52And a lot of those folks up there are savvy.
02:55They have generators.
02:56But the problem is they're out of fuel now.
02:59They've been there for three days.
03:01So so now they're saying we're out of fuel.
03:04We're out of insulin.
03:05You know, some some have medical devices that need to be plugged in and those kinds of things.
03:13The other thing is they don't have any communication.
03:15So all of all the phone lines down Internet, they don't have any Wi-Fi.
03:20So we were able to take a Starlink and put up a Starlink.
03:25And there's a crowd of like eight people around calling their loved ones.
03:30So just things that things that it's just incredible.
03:34All of the stuff that you don't think about makes a big difference.
03:38So we were able to get in and out, make a lot of trips, take a lot of supplies in and fly people out.
03:45Yeah. Tell me, how many trips did you make?
03:47Did you start at Concordia?
03:48Like, where were you guys?
03:50Who was helping provide some of the supplies for you guys to bring in and out?
03:54Well, I'll tell you, the the the effort is incredibly wide.
03:58So when we started, I think there was two helicopters in the air when we first saw the Facebook post.
04:03That next morning, there was probably 20 helicopters that showed up.
04:09By the end of the day, there was probably 30 to 35 helicopters, including, you know, NASCAR teams.
04:16I think Hendrick and Gibbs have their machines up in the air.
04:21So fixed wing pilots.
04:24The Statesville Airport, one of the hangars in the Statesville Airport, is completely full in a day with with donations of supplies.
04:31So it expanded very quickly from a Facebook post.
04:37And honestly, not a lot of people know what's going on and how devastated it is.
04:42When I flew through this area, there's like six cars on the railroad tracks.
04:47There's a mobile home on I-40.
04:51There's tractor trailers from I think it's Ingalls or one of the Publix or one of one of the grocery chains.
04:59Their tractor trailers are in the creeks.
05:01It's it's it's pretty devastating what what they've gone through.
05:06So that's just in the main, then you have all this, you know, rural areas out in the mountains that are well populated.
05:15Well, listen, I you know, I'd love to have you back to talk about racing.
05:19This is not the time to do that because of what is going on.
05:22So hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I can have you back to talk about that and talk about the Hall of Fame nomination and all of that stuff.
05:28But you and your wife, Christina, and everyone that's kind of spearheading these efforts for folks that are just struggling so bad.
05:35You guys are angels. And I really appreciate you taking a few minutes to come on and talk to us about it.
05:39Thank you, Shannon. I appreciate it.