Cadet Lt. Col. Ann Grammer was 12 when she joined Civil Air Patrol in June 2019. At the time, she just wanted to play video games and sports.
With CAP, she thought she might learn how to fly a plane.
But a cadet mentor changed the trajectory of her life when she introduced the newcomer to the world of emergency services. Now the 17-year-old cadet commander in the Northwest Georgia Composite Squadron, Grammar recently led a team of nearly 20 cadets on a humanitarian relief mission after Hurricane Helene devastated the city of Augusta.
The region’s fifth hurricane of the year in the region and the second major storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, Helene began forming Sept. 22. It’s the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since Maria in 2017 and the deadliest to strike the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005. Cities in Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah to Augusta struggled with power failures, flooding, and downed power lines.
A week after the storm, Augusta was placed on a boil-water advisory and had limited power restored. As relief efforts began, the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency called on the Georgia Wing for assistance.
“I’ve been training for this for 5½ years,” Grammer said. “It started with Cadet Chief (Master Sgt.) Annio Schneider. She gave us our ground team bibles, and we opened them up and we would study.”
Then came training at CAP’s National Emergency Services Academy Southeast, “where ‘I was a 12-year-old kid with a 50 -pound backpack on my back the entire day,” the cadet recalled. “I was like 90 pounds, so it was really funny.”
A half-decade later, at home Grammar’s old pink toy room has been converted into a command center with TVs lining the walls so she can watch the news and CAP’s Web Mission Information & Reporting System (WMIRS) at the same time.
Her XBox is still there, but the dollhouse has been replaced with a flight simulator.
The preparation helped her achieve her Ground Team Member Level 1 and qualify as an urban direction-finding team member, skills evaluator trainer, small Unmanned Aircraft Systems operations technician, mission radio operator, and mission staff assistant. Outside CAP, she’s also certified as a Community Emergency Response Team member.
The culmination of training and two previous missions gave her the ability to assist the ground branch director for the Augusta mission — Capt. Amy Grammer, her mother, who joined CAP a month after her daughter because the girl wanted to go on hurricane missions.
Capt. Grammer is well-known in the Georgia Wing for her emergency services skills. The wing’s assistant director of operations as well as emergency services, she’s certified as a ground team leader, ground branch director, planning section chief, mission scanner, mission observer, and mission pilot and technician. She’ll soon also fulfill the requirements to be a CAP pilot.
She led the ground team in support of GEMA, which requested 15-20 members for point-of-distribution support distributing food, meals, water, personal hygiene items, and supplies to residents affected by Hurricane Helene.
The distribution point was established Sept. 30 and operated daily until all relief supplies were gone. On one day alone, the CAP volunteer team unloaded eight Federal Emergency Management Agency semitrailers and two city box trailers by hand.
Over three days, the members organized and distributed nonperishable and hot food, cleaning supplies, personal hygiene items and bottled water to 1,813 vehicles and 3,106 residents. On Oct. 7, GEMA requested another CAP team to continue distribution support at least 48 more hours.
“I was the highest-ranking and most qualified kid out on the ground, regardless of my age,” the younger Grammer said. “I got down there, and I watched the [Georgia Army National Guard] captain closely and I watched his men. And I just learned as quickly as I could.
“I was there on the floor helping my team move stuff, because I feel like if you’re going to be a commander, you should be a servant leader. You should be doing the job with your people.”
In addition to the Augusta mission, the Georgia Wing soon launched simultaneous missions in Effingham and Peachtree City.
At the request of the Effingham County Emergency Management Agency, 19 members from Effingham, Statesboro, and Savannah activated Oct. 2 at Manna House in Rincon, where they distributed food, water, personal hygiene items, baby formula, diapers, and more to those affected by Hurricane Helene in the southern portion of the state. In total, they distributed supplies to 420 vehicles.
On Oct. 2-3, 11 members from Peachtree City and West Georgia responded to Cajun Navy Relief’s request for distribution and airlift support at Atlanta Regional Airport. They loaded supplies onto about 20 aircraft that volunteers from other organizations would later fly to hard-hit areas throughout southeast and northeast Georgia.
At the peak of the three missions, 83 cadets and adult members were participating.
“Just based on the reactions to some of those people who we gave resources to, they needed it. They needed it more than anyone,” Ann Grammer said.
“You see the relief on their faces like you’ve just taken one more thing off their plate, something less they have to worry about. And I love seeing it, because you can’t even fathom what they’ve just been through.”
For those providing assistance, the preparation and effort are summed up with a remark Maj. Gen. Regena Aye, CAP national commander/CEO, made at the Southeast Region/Tennessee Wing Conference in Franklin the following weekend.
“We hope we don’t have to use those skills, but when we do, we have them,” Aye told her audience. “You are always vigilant and ready to contribute those skills that you’ve built … that (training) time is not wasted.”
Capt. Grammer agreed.
“This group of cadets and seniors knocked it out of the park,” she said. “They under-promised and way over-delivered.”
“I met some new cadets, and I was just like, ‘Where have you been? Can you come to my squadron?’” her daughter added.
“Whether they were exhausted or tired, they kept their eyes on the mission and they pushed on. I’m beyond proud of everyone that was there.
“No matter who they are, no matter what job they did, I am beyond proud. There’s not even words to describe how proud I am.,” the cadet said.
Both Grammers are already watching the weather with an eye on looming Hurricane Milton. They’re unpacking and repacking with lessons learned from Helene.
“Keep things tight,” Ann Grammer said. “Keep it simple, sugar.”_____Lt. Col. Elizabeth PeacePublic Affairs OfficerGeorgia Wing
