What’s really going on in and around Asheville; Volunteer pilots threatened with arrest

by WorldTribune Staff, October 3, 2024 Contract With Our Readers

According to social media reports logged by WorldTribune.com, local communities throughout North Caroline are trucking supplies, sending private helicopters and planes, and loading up pack mules and sending them to support friends, relatives, and stranded residents in western mountainous areas of the state and east Tennessee that were devastated by Hurricane Helene.

Americans are responding as the Biden-Harris administration fails the victims, many are saying.

Devastation in Asheville, North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene. / Video Image

Independent reports and social media posts from hard-hit areas are saying FEMA is essentially MIA.

From a private security firm official on social media:

There are men, women and children starving, without water and sanitation. No fuel. People can’t get to any distribution points because they have no fuel.

People are walking on foot and dragging wagons . . . . The majority of federal and state assets are being diverted to the incorporated areas of Asheville, Black Mtn, etc. and without a deliberate effort yet into the rural unincorporated areas. People are suffering, and communities are rapidly moving to isolation and self defense and policing.

There are bodies floating down the rivers. There are bodies stuck in the tops of trees. Linemen entering destroyed areas are finding dozens of children as young as 3 walking thru the mud near naked, crying for their parents. ….

Entire communities are just gone. Gone gone. Nothing to repair, and in some of the areas just no one to even help anymore. …. The death count WILL be in the thousands. Desperation is increasing, and most vets are lying on their roofs with rifles. Local rural gas stations, markets etc have clear militias forming with men in hodge podge gear and rifles patrolling. We are self-policing now.

Full situation continues to seemingly paint a justification for soon future massive control and lock downs, if not martial law frankly. Was talking to a lineman yesterday how he’s finding heads and limbs everytime debris is removed. The devastation is far worse than what you are being told and the federal and state response is largely ineffective.

Disaster relief insider on corrupt FEMA and why citizens aren’t allowed to help

Posted to X on Oct. 2:

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Firefighter threatened with arrest for using own helicopter to rescue victims

A South Carolina volunteer firefighter who used his own helicopter to assist with rescue efforts in western North Carolina was threatened with arrest after the Biden-Harris Department of Transportation set up a no-fly zone for drones in the area, and issued a temporary no-fly zone for private flights.

Jordan Seidhom told Queen City News that when he woke up on Saturday, he saw a post on Facebook regarding a family stranded in Banner Elk, North Carolina. With his son as co-pilot, he loaded his helicopter with bottled water and food and headed toward the town.

Seidhom landed on the driveway of a stranded couple, loaded the woman into the helicopter and left his son there, fearing placing too much weight on the deteriorating driveway. “I originally left my son, copilot, on the side of the mountain. It was kind of unstable, so I didn’t want to put more weight on the helicopter to lift back off. So, I left my son with the other victim. And I was just going to take one person down at the time,” Seidhom said.

After landing, officials on site told Seldhom to shut down his rescue operation or he would be subject to arrest.

A no-fly zone for drones had been set up in multiple areas of North Carolina by the FAA. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that temporary flight restrictions were set up for drones and flights to allow for “flights or drone activity that might be involved in helping to allow those emergency responders to do their job.”

Seldhom said: “At that point, I had to make a decision. I have a victim, I have my son, and I politely asked the officers, told him the situation again, explained everything, told them who I’d been coordinating with, and I said, ‘Hey if I go back up and get this victim and bring him down to this landing spot that other emergency personnel have designated, am I going to be arrested? And the officers’ response was, ‘Man, I really don’t know what to do in this situation.’ ”

Before he took off, Seldhom recalled the officials saying, “Hey, man, we can’t tell you to go get the victim. We can’t even ask you to go get the victim, but we can tell you if you come back with the victim, we’ll have you a designated landing spot and we’ll make sure they don’t come over here.”

Seldhom picked up his son but had to leave the husband behind on the mountainside. The father and son reported to the airport, but FAA officials never came.

The father and son flew home, calling off their efforts. On Monday though, that temporary restriction was lifted, and Seidhom threw food and water into his helicopter and headed back to Lake Lure and joined up with the Carolina Emergency Response Team, which has called for private helicopters to help in efforts.

Social media post by Milligan University official John Kitsteiner in Tennessee:

Hurricane Helene: A note to friends outside of the South. We live in Greene County, East Tennessee. Our county’s southern border is the Tennessee-North Carolina state line that runs along the heights of the Appalachian Mountains. We are within the hardest hit region of the U.S.

The questions I have been hearing a lot is why was this so bad, and why weren’t people prepared. ….

Hurricane Helene was the strongest hurricane (in recorded history) to hit Florida’s big bend region (on the eastern edge of the panhandle). It is the deadliest hurricane to hit the United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The death toll is over 160 so far. We are still finding bodies, and there are still many, many people missing as I write this today six days after the hurricane hit land.

I work in the emergency department at Greeneville Community Hospital. The hospital itself has been evacuated because we have no water in the majority of the county. …. Fortunately, I have a well and didn’t lose electricity for long. I was able to haul water in a 300 gallon tote in the back of my truck to the hospital for the first few days so we could flush toilets and wash hands. …. Under an hour from our hospital to the east, Unicoi County Hospital was flooded requiring patients and providers to be rescued from the roof via helicopter. Under an hour from our hospital to the south, over the mountains, Asheville, NC has been hit particularly hard.

But why was this region hit so hard?

First, we had a lot of rain before Hurricane Helene even showed up. Depending on the area, we had 7-11 inches of rain in the week before the first storm clouds of the hurricane arrived. This rain saturated the ground and filled ponds and streams.

Then the hurricane arrived. She barreled her way up through the panhandle of Florida, quickly shot through Georgia, and then slowed down and stalled over North Carolina and East Tennessee.

The reason she stalled involves atmospheric pressure conditions that I don’t fully understand, but the result was that this hurricane dropped 20 inches to over 30 inches of rain in some areas… that’s an estimated 40 trillion gallons of rain. ….

So this is an unprecedented amount of rain already falling on an area that had just received ground-saturated rain. But it wasn’t just the amount of rain, it was the geography of where that rain fell. The southeastern slopes (of western North Carolina) and the northwestern slopes (of East Tennessee) acted as funnels or rain catchments that directed all this water downhill and concentrated it into streams and rivers running into the valleys. It overflowed these streams and rivers causing massive flooding.

How much flooding? The French Broad River usually crests at 1.5 feet… but it reached 24.6 feet during the storm. The Nolichuckey River rose to almost 22 feet. ….

The flooding, and all the things the flooding carried with it (large trees, vehicles, buildings, etc.) caused widespread damage. It destroyed homes and businesses. It destroyed roads and bridges. It knocked out power. This isolated many places for days and days from normal rescue efforts and evacuation plans.

Here in Greene County, the flooding destroyed the intake pump for the county’s primary water supply. We hope they will be able to bring in a temporary pump to bypass the damaged system, but that still may take a couple weeks. In the meantime, most people in the county have no clean water for drinking, washing hands, or bathing, and no water for sanitation.

I have taken care of people in the emergency department who had their homes literally washed away. Everything they own, other than the clothes on their back, has been lost. Many friends have had their homes almost destroyed by flooding and their houses are filled with mud and debris. Other places around us have unfortunately been hit harder.

Why weren’t people prepared? No one in the mountains of North Carolina or East Tennessee prepares for a hurricane.

It’s kind of like asking why someone in Iowa doesn’t prepare for a tidal wave or why someone in Florida doesn’t prepare for a blizzard. It’s not what happens, like ever.

This was a combination of already rain-saturated ground before the hurricane hit, the hurricane/storm stalling over this region dumping unprecedented amounts of rainfall in a small area, and the geography of mountains channeling and concentrating all this water into the valleys below that created a perfect storm, so to speak, of conditions that caused this disaster.

It couldn’t have been prevented or prepared for.

Mountain Mule Packer Ranch delivers supplies to stranded North Carolina residents

According to Dr. Clayton Forrester, The Mountain Mule Packer Ranch, based in North Carolina, a company that provides pack mules to the U.S. military, is using its mules to deliver supplies to the stranded residents in Black Mountain and Swannanoa, North Carolina.

The group shared on Facebook, “They call them beasts of burden, we call them our beloved mules. They are capable and willing to work in many conditions most won’t. They are not stubborn…..they are wise, and require respect. They have had many roles in their careers, from hauling camping gear and fresh hunt, pulling wagons and farm equipment; to serving in training the best of the very best of our military special forces, carrying weapons, medical supplies, and even wounded soldiers.”

“This week, they are ready to work with us to HELP many in need after the devastation of Hurricane Helene. We are blessed and grateful for each of the mules (And Vader) on this team! Thought we would introduce you to them!”

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