San Bernardino mountain residents frustrated after volunteer helicopter efforts are restricted

Flights were tentatively set to resume Saturday after a nonprofit volunteer organization said they were stymied on Friday in their mission to deliver food and supplies via helicopters to San Bernardino mountain residents. The Sheriff’s Department said there were safety concerns about where the helicopters could land.

The volunteer operation was organized by residents upset by what they called an insufficient response from local and federal agencies to help residents stranded after the recent blizzard.

The residents partnered with CalDART, a volunteer aerial disaster response team that dispatches to scenes all over California.

The plan was to shuttle supplies like food, water, and baby formula from San Bernardino Community Hospital to Mountain View Community Hospital.

According to CalDART president Paul Marshall, four deliveries were made before the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department stopped the operation early Friday afternoon when one of the helicopters attempted to land in a supermarket parking lot where residents were waiting to receive deliveries.

“The parking lot was heavily populated with citizens receiving food rations,” the Sheriff’s Department said on Twitter.

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Organizers said the Sheriff’s Department also stopped them from landing a helicopter on a helipad at Arrowhead Community Hospital, which could not be independently confirmed.

Sheriff’s officials said that part of the reason for stopping the helicopters was that the area where they were flying has been declared a disaster zone, which restricts private aircraft from using the airspace.

“The sheriffs called us and had some safety concerns about some of our landing zones,” Marshall said. “Pilots will have different views on what’s acceptable and not acceptable, and this is one of those situations. There was a lot of stuff we needed to deliver, but once we were shut down, we couldn’t.”

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Organizers, who have been working for days to gather supplies, were upset that local law enforcement stopped the helicopters. They said donated food sat in the sun for four hours as agencies figured out how to deliver it.

“We had people saying that they could transport goods, but we were wondering how we’d transport it if we were shut down,” said one of the organizers, 39-year-old Beaumont resident Mai Vang, who was stranded in Lake Arrowhead while on vacation with her family. She has since been able to get down the mountain, and is helping from Beaumont.

“A lot of our volunteers are very frustrated,” she said. “I am very sad that the supplies came in, and we couldn’t move it, and people who need supplies don’t have them.”

After discussions between CalDART and the Sheriff’s Department, the operation was set to resume on Saturday, March 4, if conditions allow.

“I haven’t spoken with [the Sheriff] but a lot of people are very disappointed, including the pilots,” Vang said. “We have had pilots try to call him, but he hasn’t called back.”

Vang said that volunteers can meet organizers at San Bernardino Community Hospital in front of the emergency department beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday to help.

On Friday night, the Sheriff’s Department posted additional food deliveries to be made, including on Saturday at Goodwin & Son’s Market in Crestline.

The department also said deputies on snowcats were distributing Meals Ready-to-Eat (MREs) to stranded residents they were coming into contact with.