A South Carolina pilot who flew stranded Hurricane Helene victims to safety in flood-ravaged North Carolina alleges he was told he would be arrested if he persisted with the rescue flights.
Jordan Seidhom was transporting victims out of the destruction over the weekend when local leaders informed him that there was a flight restriction in the region and that he would face arrest if he continued to fly. “There were additional casualties. As we were flying out of the neighborhood, we noticed [people] waving for aid as my son and I left,” Seidhom told Queen City News.
After the storm devastated the region, leaving hundreds of people trapped as entire streets washed away, Seidhom read of a family stranded without water on a mountain in Banner Elk, a ski town ravaged by the storm, and felt he had to help. “I thought, I have a helicopter; maybe I can help,” he explained to the site.
Seidhom, who previously led the Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office narcotics unit, and his teenage son Landon flew out bottled water and food to the family on Saturday before seeking additional people in need of assistance. The father and son, both volunteer firemen, flew four people to safety on Saturday, including two women stranded at the top of a mountain and two vacationers stuck inside their Airbnb.
“They only had one day’s supply, which was depleted by Saturday.” They had no food, no running water, and no power. And we were heading back in this direction, so we transported them to Charlotte-Douglas Airport, where they could fly home,” Seidhom explained. After resting in recliners in a local airport’s pilot lounge, the father and son returned on Sunday to find a husband and wife waving them down from their partially washed-away home.
With only his little chopper, Seidhom had his son evacuate the aircraft to make room for his wife, whom he flew to a group of first responders about three minutes distant. “Originally, I left my kid, co-pilot, on the mountainside. [The helicopter] was a little unsteady, so I didn’t want to put too much weight on it to lift it back off. So, I left my son with the other victim. “And I was only going to take down one person at a time,” Seidhom explained. Seidhom’s attempts to return for the other victim and his son were foiled by an anonymous Lake Lure fire officer, who allegedly threatened to arrest him if he proceeded to pick up trapped victims, Seidhom told the publication.
“I told him that I had left my son on the side of the mountain, along with another victim. I was returning to bringing them; it was fully lined up for the landing site, and then I’d leave his area. He instructed me that I would not go back up the mountain to get them; instead, I would leave them there. However, the official stood firm and maintained his threat to arrest Seidhom if he found the other victim and flew him to the first responders, according to Seidhom’s claims.
Defeated, Seidhom returned to reclaim his son and explain what had occurred to the husband, whom he had been forced to abandon in his crumbling driveway. Within half an hour of the argument with the fire officer, Seidhom said, a temporary flight restriction was imposed over Lake Lure, where he attempted to rescue the stranded couple. When the limitation was lifted on Monday, Seidhom reloaded his aircraft with food and bottled water and flew back to Lake Lure with the Carolina Emergency Response Team. This volunteer organization dispatches pilots to areas needing assistance. While Seidhom is now doing everything he can to help individuals in need, he believes the Lake Lure fire official’s action to prevent him from picking up victims on Sunday endangered lives.
“I can only imagine what everyone was thinking. You’ve been trapped for 24 to 36 hours—no method to communicate with anyone. You have no idea what’s happening, but you see a lifeline fly over, and they continue. “I can only imagine what they were thinking.” He went further: “If I had to do it over again, I would have stopped, and I would have rescued as many people until they decided they were going to arrest me.”
The Post was unable to reach Lake Lure officials immediately on Wednesday. Hurricane Helene roared into Florida on Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane before wreaking havoc across the Southeast, killing at least 140 people. On Wednesday, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris planned to visit North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia to inspect the destruction.
