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Ahelicopter pilot in North Carolina was threatened with arrest after
carrying out voluntary rescues of people stranded in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

Jordan Seidhom sprang into action on Saturday after seeing a Facebook post about a family in Banner Elk who were running out of food and water. The
small town was one of the hardest hit by Helene.

Seidhom is a Class 1 certified law enforcement officer and a pilot with
nearly 1,400 flight hours. Along with his son, he is also a member of the Sandhills Volunteer Fire Department in Pageland, South Carolina.

ôI thought, I have a helicopter, maybe I can help,ö Seidhom told local
station, WJZY.

After getting clearance from local airports to fly through the airspace
towards Lake Lure, an area devastated by Helene, the pair sought to locate those stranded, and rescued six people.

The next day, September 29, the Seidhoms were inundated with messages on
social media with requests from other people with stranded relatives.

The pair were alerted to a couple stranded on their crumbling driveway
near Lake Lure. Seidhom, concerned about the weight of four passengers,
left his son on the mountain with the husband and flew the woman to
safety.

They then made contact with first responders in a parking lot near the
Lake Lure Flowering Bridge.

ôOnce we landed where emergency personnel were, I was met by a fire chief
or maybe a captain, and he asked me who I was. I told him who I was, who I
was with, just a local volunteer,ö Seidhom told WJZY. ôI told him my
background experience, law enforcement, firefighting, and pilot and he immediately started helping with coordination.

ôHe gave me radio frequencies to coordinate with them on, set up a landing
area for me to come back with the other victim, and just basically started
the rescue efforts; the policies and procedures that you would take coordinating with someone from an outside source or outside agency.

ôAnd in the middle of the whole conversation and them blocking the road
off, I was greeted by the ù at that time I didnÆt know ù but the Lake Lure
fire chief, or assistant chief, maybe. And he shut down the whole
operation.ö

At this point, Seidhom says, he was threatened with arrest.

ôHe originally asked me who I was. I gave him the same information, who I
was with, my background experience, law enforcement, and firefighting,ö he said. ôAnd his response was, if you have that kind of experience, you
should know that you should be coordinating with us.ö

Seidhom said he asked the official for a specific reason he was ordering
him to stop his rescue efforts and was told he was ôinterferingö with
official operations.

ôHe said, æIf you turn around and go back up the mountain, youÆre going to
be arrested.Æ I said, æWell, sir, IÆm going back to get my copilot [his
son], I donÆt know what to tell you.Æö

Seidhom said the official called over two law enforcement officers and
again threatened him with arrest if he flew back up the mountain to join
his son, and rescue the womanÆs husband. He was instead ordered to the Rutherford County Airport to wait for Federal Aviation Administration
officials to meet with him.

Seidhom insisted on returning to the mountainside to retrieve his son, but explained the situation to the husband after he arrived. Officials had
told him the man would be rescued by officials in a ôfew hours,ö he told
WJZY.

According to the man, identified as Michael Coffey, he was later forced to
swim to safety with the coupleÆs pet cat Cleo, with the assistance of an
EMT crew from Michigan. In a Facebook post, Coffey wrote: ôMan. What a
weekend. We lost our new river house- completely gone. Got out about 30
min before it went and spent the weekend in our car because all bridges
got washed away. Susan got a helicopter lift out and I swam across the
river with Cleo (our cat) & EMT crew (from Michigan).ö

The Seidhoms spent three hours at the airport, but no one from the FAA
turned up. However, according to Seidhom, within half an hour of his
arrest threat, a Temporary Flight Restriction was set up over the Lake
Lure gap. Following the incident, Seidhom said he believes the Lake Lure
fire officialÆs decision to order him and other pilots out of the rescue
zone on Sunday put lives at risk.

ôIÆm sorry, if I had to do it over again, I [wouldnÆt] have stopped and I
would have rescued as many people until they decided they were going to
arrest me,ö Seidhom told WJZY.

A post on the Town of Lake Lure official Facebook page said: ôAlthough we greatly appreciate all offers to volunteer, Town Officials are working to decongest the area to ensure the highest degree of safety in this rescue
phase of recovery.ö

In the following days, the townÆs official posts have been hit with calls
for the fire chief to be dismissed from angry residents, many of whom are seeking help for stranded friends and relatives.

The Independent has contacted the Town of Lake Lure for comment on the incident.

The Independent is the worldÆs most free-thinking news brand, providing
global news, commentary and analysis for the independently-minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently minded individuals, who
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making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/helicopter-pilot-threatened-with-arrest- after-rescuing-people-stranded-by-hurricane-helene/ar-AA1rIrVW

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