No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Hurricane Helene’s death toll stands at 177 and climbing as flooding punishes the southeastern United States. Material damage is estimated at $95 – $110 billion according to AccuWeather. Survivors are scattered across pockets in the Appalachian Mountains which traverse that region, unable to get out, nor get supplies in as their provisions dwindle.
Government is doing what it can on the local, state and federal levels, but as Helene has destroyed infrastructure for electricity, sewage and telecommunications, it is a challenge to discover survivors, let alone rescue them. In any sane world, government would want all the competent help it can get in saving citizens from annihilation, but we could never be so lucky.
Enter Jordan Seidhom, retired sheriff’s deputy and current volunteer firefighter based in South Carolina, who owns and is licensed to pilot a small helicopter. Credible posts were being made on social media identifying people in need of rescue from the floods in Helene’s wake, so Jordan decided to do what he could to save these folks on his own time and dime. He secured pre-authorization to overfly Charlotte-Douglas Airport and head into the mountain gap en route to North Carolina. Jordan loaded his Robinson 44 with bottled water and emergency foodstuffs, and his son Landon accompanied him as co-pilot. When airborne, Jordan’s was the only helicopter operating within a forty-mile radius.
On Saturday, September 28th, the Seidhoms rescued four stranded persons, and spent the night sleeping in recliners at a nearby air strip. On Sunday they flew another mission to find more survivors. In a landscape ravaged by the floods, with natural and man-made landmarks hidden beneath turbid waters, the Seidhoms spotted an older couple on what remained of a driveway, except that much of the packed earth beneath it had been washed away. Jordan landed on this impromptu helipad, though he was worried about it bearing too much weight. Thus he decided to take just the wife first, relaying her to an outpost of first responders about three minutes away by helicopter, then return for the husband, who was left in Landon’s company.
Jordan dropped off the wife with the first responders, quieting their legitimate concerns about competent rescuers by notifying them of his public service credentials. Just as Jordan was about to return to his helicopter, an unidentified official of the Lake Lure Fire Department approached Jordan and ordered him to fly no more rescue missions under threat of arrest. The official even told him to inform any other pilot colleagues that they would be arrested if they attempted to fly rescue missions into the official’s jurisdiction. Jordan flew back to pick up Landon, but abandoned the husband, telling him about the local fire official’s prohibition on further rescue flights, which would be forestalled by the official arranging minutes later for aviation authorities to designate the area a “no fly zone.”
In the face of unfathomable devastation, when the whole country is rallying to help those affected by the hurricane, at least one government official preferred that people die on his watch than be rescued by voluntaryist competition!
