On Saturday, Carrie Everett will start her journey to become the next Miss America.

The Johnston County native will head to Orlando on Saturday as she prepares to compete in the Miss America Pageant on Jan. 5.

Everett will be joined by Kamryn Howell, who won the 20th Miss Teen North Carolina.

“We are currently stopped in Georgia and on our way to Orlando in the morning,” Everett told WRAL News on Friday. “We just needed a bit of rest.”

In June, Everett won the 87th Miss North Carolina pageant. In an August interview, she told WRAL News that her family struggled with finances and that her journey to be Miss North Carolina was challenging.

She said it wasn’t a journey she wouldn’t have been able to do alone.

“I learned it’s okay to ask for help,” she said. “I have always been an individual who is scared to ask for help because I don’t want to feel the shame of not being able to do things myself.”

While she describes herself as independent, she said she has learned that you can be independent and still as for help.

She told WRAL News she plans to take those lessons into the competition and not only compete but bring Miss America back to North Carolina for the first time since 1962.

“I am feeling ready, willing and like I can totally bring that crown home with the grace of God,” she said. “I hope to make history for North Carolina. I’m ready, y’all.”

The Miss America pageant will take place at the Walt Disney Theater at the Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts, with preliminary competitions starting on New Year’s Eve.

The pageant has five areas of competition: interviews, sportswear, evening gowns, on-stage questions and talent.

Everett will perform “The Impossible Dream” from the Broadway musical, “Man of La Mancha,” an adaptation of the 17th-century novel Don Quixote.

“It’s a beautiful piece and tells the story of our lives [and] my family … It will tell the story of my life and how far I’ve come, dreaming the impossible dream to inspire [the] youth of this generation that they can dream so much bigger than they think they can,” she said.

The Miss America pageant will be live-streamed on YouTube and MissAmerica.TV.

LUMBERTON, N.C. — North Carolina is launching a new drone initiative to improve disaster response efforts, particularly in the aftermath of events like Hurricanes Helene and Florence.

The program, supported by a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, will enable faster delivery of emergency supplies and quicker damage assessments in affected areas, the North Carolina Department of Transportation said.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation secured a grant as one of 47 awardees across the country through the Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grants Program, an initiative supported by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Nick Short, the interim director of North Carolina’s Division of Aviation, highlighted the potential of this technology, which includes “drone-in-a-box” systems for remote operations. Autonomous drones can be placed in communities before a storm and then deployed remotely to start collecting images of damage and deliver emergency supplies. These drones can be dispatched rapidly and operate in conditions where traditional methods are hindered by obstacles or damage, speeding up response times dramatically.

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“With the ‘drone in a box,’ we can place a drone with medicine like insulin on the side of a road and then those supplies are there and ready to be deployed right away,” Short said. “We will be able to deploy the drone remotely, so we can begin collecting data and delivering supplies without having to wait on someone to respond by driving into the area. In doing so, we’re also removing the risk of putting people in further danger during a natural disaster.”

The “drone-in-a-box” pilot phase will begin in Lumberton, a city that has faced significant challenges from previous storms, NCDOT said. This approach not only seeks to address current disaster management needs but also to adapt to the increasing frequency and intensity of weather events.

“These storms tend to impact people in historically disadvantaged communities where roads and other infrastructure become inundated faster and for longer periods of time than many other communities,” Short said. “That was true in Lumberton during Hurricane Florence and is one of the main reasons we’re piloting this program there.”

Aviation officials hope to expand on their achievements during Hurricane Helene, where the division collaborated with the N.C. Department of Public Safety, the National Guard and the Civil Air Patrol, according to NCDOT. Together, they utilized drones, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to capture thousands of images of areas too isolated to access by land.

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ATLANTA – Nearly three months after Hurricane Helene barreled through the southeast, a North Carolina-based non-profit has opened an art exhibit in Atlanta to try and help struggling artists recover.

Asheville’s Historic River Arts District was reduced to ruins after Helene came through in September and destroyed 80 percent of the artist’s studio space.

“Art is very important to Asheville and kind of always has been…this was definitely a wonderful gift,” RADA Foundation Executive Director Kim Hundertmark told FOX 5.

That gift to Asheville artists came in the form of exposure at Atlanta’s Ponce City Market.

“Ponce City Market donated this space…we don’t really have a lot of gallery space or studio space in the River Arts (District) right now,” she explained.

Hundertmark is one of the dozens of artists whose studio spaces were damaged by the hurricane that claimed hundreds of lives and left widespread devastation.

“The River Arts District started as an inexpensive place for artists to find studio space,” she said. “We all had to move out…I was in the second floor…and had about a foot and a half of water in my studio.”

Hundertmark says even in the cold of this winter season, the response from Metro Atlanta residents has been warm.

“We’ve sold about $20,000 worth of art in the last four weeks,” she told FOX 5.

She says that support means everything to the 40 artists featured.

“It means they pay their rent for the next month or two…it means that they’re able to buy supplies that they lost in the flood,” Hundertmark said.

The River Arts District pop-up exhibit will be open until Sunday, Dec. 29. The exhibit is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.