Did FEMA aircraft block a runway at the Greenville, South Carolina, airport on October 5, 2024, preventing civilian disaster aid from reaching Hurricane Helene victims and "stopping help"? No, that's not true: While an airport representative said a FEMA contractor did stage their operations on a secondary, "infrequently used" runway there, civilian assistance flights continued on the main runway. "FEMA has never stopped operations" at the facility, he said.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on October 5, 2025, with the on-screen title "FEMA stopping help." The video's caption said:
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Oct 7 21:56:48 2024 UTC)
The 92-second video alleges that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) interfered with civilian relief flying in and out of Greenville Downtown Airport, effectively shutting it down. A watermark on the video shows it was likely first posted to the Instagram account (archived here) of Chadwick Buckland, who identifies himself as a worship pastor at Legacy Church Global in Greenville. In the clip, Buckland said, in part:
FEMA has flown in like 10 or more helicopters and blocked a runway here at Greenville Downtown, completely took it over, or almost took over the operation. Just because they're [civilian flights] doing some good here, FEMA's going to come here and try to stop it.
The original video no longer appears on Buckland's Instagram account. The watermark showing his account, chadwickbuckland, can be seen at the top of the video and appears in a screenshot below:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Oct 7 23:35:30 2024 UTC)
Greenville Downtown Airport
In an October 7, 2024, phone interview with Lead Stories, Greenville Downtown Airport Public Relations Director Robert Hoover said the claim in the social media post was "not true." He continued:
Technically, it wasn't FEMA that was here. So, it was an entity that was contracted out to provide medical support on a standby basis and therefore needed a space. They contacted us, and we were one of the closest airports that had enough space ... And so in order to come in, we decided to close our secondary runway, which is infrequently used, and placed those helicopters there. ...
To say that FEMA is stopping airport operations as airport operations are going on, it's kind of stupid, in my opinion.
The western Carolinas were extremely hard-hit by Helene.
Hoover said the FEMA contractor was at Greenville Downtown Airport from October 4, 2024, through October 7, 2024.
The airport also posted retorts to Buckland's video on its social media accounts. In an October 7, 2024, post on Facebook (archived here), it said:
FEMA has never stopped operations at GMU [Greenville Downtown Airport].
Just ask us... the FEMA contractor that was here didn't shut down the secondary runway or the airport. They moved to support a different location now. Thank you for everyone that supported the relief efforts. We live in an amazing community with great people!
The airport's Instagram account (archived here) added this in another October 7, 2024, post:
We also want to say that FEMA never shut down operations at the airport. The contractor that was here relocated to support an area that needed more help. As a general rule, just ask official sources if you have a question- first.
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Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims about Hurricane Helene can be found here.
