Tennessee political commentator and documentary filmmaker Robby Starbuck is using his platform and personal funds to help victims of Hurricane Helene in East Tennessee by gathering essential supplies and purchasing and installing Starlink units in rural areas left without power.
Developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Starlink units use a network of satellites in low Earth orbit to deliver high-speed, low latency internet to the most rural and remote locations around the world.
Starbuck said he purchased approximately 20 Starlink units as of Tuesday to be installed throughout areas in East Tennessee that continue to be without power as a way to connect residents to the internet so that they can contact loved ones or for other uses.
“One of the biggest problems in these disasters is people can’t get in touch with their family members, people can’t call their insurance, can’t get a hold of emergency services because the service is down. So I said why don’t we have Starlink out there already? The federal government should have already had this there,” Starbuck explained on Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“I sent out my guys to every Home Depot in Middle Tennessee and a little bit further to some parts of East Tennessee, and we bought up every Starlink…and brought them all into East Tennessee. We put them all on my card and set them all up,” Starbuck added.
Starbuck said his work comes as assistance and the response by the federal government has been unseen to residents who were impacted by Hurricane Helene in East Tennessee.
“I’ve spoken to so many families, I couldn’t even give you a number over the past 72 hours. I have gotten one consistent thing back about asking all of them, ‘What response have you seen from the federal government? What response have you seen from the state? What have you seen from locals?’ On the federal government’s end, not one person has told me that they’ve even seen somebody who represents the federal government. Not one family,” Starbuck said.
“The fact that the federal government has done nothing when they have the most power and the most money, it’s disappointing,” Starbuck added. “When the federal government doesn’t act, other people have to. Tennesseans will always have your back. Your neighbors will always have your back.”
In addition to helping those in East Tennessee in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Starbuck said his purchase of Starlink units will be able to be used in other locations across the state in future times of need.
“Long term, these [Starlink units] are going to be something that we can just offer up for free to any place in Tennessee when something bad happens. It’s a long term investment in Tennessee’s ability to react to these things because these can just be repurposed or reused wherever there happens to be a disaster in the future. Because we all know, sadly, it will happen again at some point somewhere in our state,” Starbuck explained.
“So next time, we’ll be able to deploy literally within a few hours and have people there to set it up so that there’s an immediate ability to connect at community centers or wherever it is that we have people go for shelter,” Starbuck added.
Starbuck is also coordinating donations for those in need through his X, formerly Twitter, page, asking his followers to directly ship material goods to a distribution in Newport, Tennessee that will be distributed to families impacted by the hurricane.
Watch the full interview:
– – –
Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Starlink” by Robby Starbuck.
