WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AFX) - There are the hurricane evacuation images everyone has come to conjure -- stranded victims, snaking traffic and helicopters dispatched to rooftops. And then there is HelpJet.
The new service from West Palm Beach-based Galaxy Aviation guarantees its well-heeled members a seat on a chartered jet out of the hurricane zone, reserves five-star hotel rooms and limousine transfers and rolls out a red carpet -- literally.
'We call it evacuation in style,' said Brian Rems, who came up with the HelpJet concept.
Rems moved to South Florida from New Jersey and began work at Galaxy Aviation a few weeks before Hurricane Wilma struck last year. He noticed all the calls pouring into the office as the storm loomed at sea.
And when Wilma's arrival was imminent, Rems tried to book commercial flights for him, his wife and three children, but found nothing available. When they piled in the car to head inland, they realized they were getting nowhere and turned around.
They braved the storm at home, and an idea for a business was born.
'I said 'There's got to be a better way,'' Rems said.
HelpJet -- which charges adults a $500 annual membership fee -- subcontracts flights on 30-passenger Dornier 328 turboprop planes. The service updates members as a storm nears and flights typically can continue running until the day it hits. Flights go to Atlanta, Charlotte and Nashville and HelpJet arranges accommodations, other transportation and anything else the member may request.
The flights -- from West Palm Beach, Miami, Orlando, Tampa and four other Florida cities -- cost about $1,850 to $1,950 per person roundtrip and small pets can be brought aboard free. Rems calls it a relative bargain, given the scarcity of available commercial airline seats as a storm looms and the cost of chartering one's own plane.
HelpJet certainly isn't the first to capitalize on the threat of hurricanes.
Atlanta-based Boyken International, which represents major developers, introduced a program this year guaranteeing priority construction service to get a business back up and running fast. In New Orleans, Drew Harrington started a company called Hurricane Guy, which will board up a house, empty the refrigerator and otherwise ready customers for an evacuation. And another new West Palm Beach company, Power to Go, guarantees generator-produced electricity and fuel for businesses that must keep running after a storm.
So far, only about two dozen people have signed up for HelpJet, though the company has not yet begun its marketing push, which will include mass mailings and possibly radio ads.
A stack of sleek brochures are set on a table in Rems' office, asking the reader to 'imagine turning a disaster into a holiday.' He says he's gotten wide interest as word of the service spreads and he ultimately hopes to sign up 1,000 people.
HelpJet has partnered with Starwood Hotels & Resorts to offer rooms to evacuees, from modest under-$100 choices to luxury suites for those, as Rems says, who choose to 'turn a nightmare into a vacation.'
If all of this talk of comfort for some as death and destruction could be happening elsewhere makes someone squeamish, Rems offers notes this: HelpJet travelers will vacate commercial airline seats, which could make it easier for an average evacuee to snag one, and the service will offer free or discounted flights for utility workers, the media, doctors and others integral to post-storm operations.
'It's not for everyone,' Rems concedes. 'It's for someone who typically would be a first-class passenger.'
Sarena Morello, a Delray Beach psychotherapist, was the first to write a check to HelpJet for her and her 24-year-old daughter. After 28 years in South Florida, she felt she couldn't weather another hurricane, and had made plans to spend the entire season in Austin. When she heard about HelpJet on the local news she was overcome with excitement.
'That was the solution I've been praying for,' she said. 'To me it was an investment in peace of mind.'
Now, instead of leaving the state for hurricane season, Morello says she feels safe to stay. She's ready to board a flight to Atlanta if a serious storm is in sight, to bring her cat aboard, and to take along important documents, photo albums and family heirlooms she fears could be destroyed.
Morello said the price of the service was not inconsequential to her, but that she didn't think twice about joining.
'I never wrote a check with such freedom,' she said.
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