KSOP and KFQD Disaster Relief Operations

This aviation history vignette is less about history than it is about “current operations”.  And it’s a story not about me although I was a bit player in it, emphasis on the word “bit”.  So, I hope by telling it I don’t come off as “tooting my own horn” because that’s the furthest from my intent. This is a story about our fellow citizens in western NC who are hurting in many ways, still, even weeks after Tropical Storm Helene blew through and inundated villages like Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, the towns of Swannanoa, Black Mountain, and Spruce Pine, and the Cities of Ashville, Morganton, and Boone—and others—with wind, rain, and flood waters.

When I was hired at Moore County Airport for the job of line technician (line tech) several years ago, a job that entails refueling aircraft and other airport ramp duties (like loading and unloading passenger’s bags and other cargo, operating fuel storage facilities, and towing and marshaling aircraft), I had no idea at the time that the job might result in the opportunity to participate in disaster relief operations.

It’s not news by now that Tropical Storm Helene caused unimaginable destruction when it blew through western NC. Floods virtually erased communities off the map like the quaint village of Chimney Rock. I wish I had visited Chimney Rock before because not much of it exists anymore, except as a jumbled mess of “pick up sticks” in Lake Lure. As of this post, there are still North Carolinians listed as missing from the devastation.  Chimney Rock and Lake Lure are in Rutherford County, NC.

Less than a week after the disaster, the NC Department of Aviation called for help for one of the closest airports to some of the most severe devastation, Rutherford County Airport.  Relief flights and emergency supply deliveries were inundating Rutherford County Airport (its designator KFQD). That call for help ultimately filtered down to Moore County and to Moore County Airport. Our operations manager emailed the line techs asking if there were any volunteers.

Rutherford County is designated by the State of NC as a Tier 1, economically distressed county. Except for the formally (prior to Tropical Storm Helene) “wealthy” areas of Lake Lure and Chimney Rock, it’s a moderately poor county.  And KFQD is a relatively small, single 5000-foot north-south runway country airport, with a couple of full-time employees and a couple of part-time employees, two JetA trucks (one, almost a historical artifact given it’s a decades-old stick shift model that requires the driver to double clutch it to get it in gear) and one AVGAS truck and a small fuel “farm” that includes a 10,000-gallon AVGAS (100 low lead) fuel tank and a 12,000-gallon JetA fuel tank.

A coworker of mine and I volunteered to travel the four hours or so from Southern Pines to KFQD to assist in line tech duties, fueling and marshaling the scores of airplanes flying in with emergency relief supplies and helping to load and unload trucks departing to deliver emergency relief supplies by road.  We departed early in the morning and arrived late morning at KFQD, getting right to work.

Traveling there required that we drive over felled power lines and past downed trees that had, only days before, been cleared from US64 and that we take a detour or two.  But we ultimately made it Rutherford County Airport.

Allow me to digress just a bit.  Before we left for Rutherford County Airport, our Moore County Airport (designator KSOP) was busy in its own right with preparing supplies to be delivered to the most inaccessible and most devastated parts of our State, some of the supplies dropped aerially because there was no other way to get the supplies into these devastated areas.  The numbers of volunteers at Moore County Airport was remarkable and included moms holding babies in harnesses next to their chests and children, all pitching in to help. KSOP’s lobby was a beehive of activity involving caring, giving people who self-organized for the betterment of their fellow citizens in need.  It was truly heartwarming.

Boxes of supplies were lashed with a makeshift parachute (fashioned from a tarp as you can see in the below photo) and aircraft from KSOP flew low over the areas identified as having the greatest need and pushed the boxes from the aircraft, the makeshift parachutes slowing the decent of the supplies to allow, for the most part, undamaged boxes to land where they could be retrieved.  One or two swings in the chute and there you go!  Military canvas equipment bags (we called them “Parachute Bags” when I was in the Marines) were filled with supplies and also pushed out of the low-level-flying aircraft originating from Moore County Airport.

(First photo) Aerial drop-ready boxes in the Moore County Airport lobby. Photo by Barry Fetzer.

(Second and third photos) Paul Mullen (a retired US Army attack helicopter pilot) of PAS (Pinehurst Aviation Services based at Moore County Airport) (2) loaded up and (3) preparing to push supplies from a Sovereign Aviation aircraft (also based at Moore County Airport.  Photographer unknown.  Aircraft flown by Phillip “Slim” Thompson.

It was heartening to see the selfless support from KSOP and KFQD and the scores of citizen volunteers who put so much time and effort into helping their fellow NC citizens. The number of people who surged into these airports to help—kids and adults alike—was, again, simply amazing.

Our governments, whether local, state, or federal, are designed to be, and are in general, encumbered with lots of rules and “red tape”,  a bureaucracy that slows down their responses to things like natural disasters.  Citizens are not slowed by as many regulations and can respond immediately, which they did…and in spades!   Ultimately, though and while we were working at Rutherford County Airport, we witnessed the federal and state responses begin to catch up with increasing US Army, FEMA, National Guard, and NC State Patrol support.

The Moore County Airport Lobby chock full of relief supplies and volunteers organizing the relief.  Above and below photos by Barry Fetzer.

Rutherford County Airport ultimately got additional airport operations support (beyond the support of additional line techs) via the NC Department of Aviation including a NC National Guard expeditionary control tower, LZ and tower controllers, and USAF crash-fire-rescue assets to help with airport operations.  Perhaps one of the most touching stories is that even Tennessee sent a line tech from the Wilson Air Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee to help with line tech duties at Rutherford County.  Tennessee, a state that was reeling from its own flooding, helped its next-door neighbor state, North Carolina!  Go Volunteers!

Photos by Barry Fetzer with USAF Crash-Fire-Rescue pumper truck and with National Guard LZ/Tower controllers at Rutherford County Airport

But it was the throngs of volunteers from Habitat for Humanity and other charitable organizations at Rutherford County that really amazed me…so many people who would line up and pass boxes of supplies to the person next to them in line, efficiently emptying the aircraft that had taxied up the largest hangar on the airport.  Even our crash-fire-rescue team at Rutherford County Airport got involved in lining up to empty aircraft.  The relief supplies were organized into categories (baby items, paper products, food items, cleaning supplies, water, personal hygiene items, etc.) and boxed into right-sized containers for delivery via ground transport to those in need as the road systems opened up to allow access.  Even an aircraft from Florida arrived filled with relief supplies only days before Hurricane Milton was bulls-eyed on Florida.

(First image) Rutherford Airport volunteers waiting for the next supply-delivery aircraft to arrive and here it is! Line ‘em up and pass it along!  (Second Image) A private jet from Florida loaded with relief supplies (note the Florida “Gator” on the empennage). Photos by Barry Fetzer

My Moore County Airport coworker, Jody Phillips, and I (along with our fellow Rutherford County line techs and leaders Devon, Mike, Eric, and Micky) helped operate the airport’s fuel farm and refueled scores of aircraft while at Rutherford County Airport including ABC TV, NC Highway Patrol, and many US Army helicopters, several of them “hot” refueled (fueling them while they’re “turning and burning”) a procedure we typically avoid because of the risks involved (fuel spills and fire…and, of course, those head-chopping spinning rotor blades). But I have to admit (speaking of being a “bit player” in this endeavor) a “bit” of a thrill being under those spinning rotor blades and screaming jet engines while we were pumping JetA fuel into these aircraft, especially the CH-47D Chinooks that flew in for a hot refueling before they continued with their disaster relief duties.

(Top to bottom)—a 101^st Airborne Medivac Blackhawk, two of four Chinooks awaiting a “hot” refueling (using the two JetA fuel trucks Rutherford County Airport has at its disposal), and Jody and I with a just refueled ABC News chopper. 

Photos by Barry Fetzer.

(Top to bottom)—with a 101^st Airborne Blackhawk aircrewman, a King Air unloading relief supplies watched over by our crash-fire-rescue team, and with a NC State Trooper helo and pilot.

Photos by Barry Fetzer.

A NC National Guard expeditionary control tower vehicle bathed in the light of the airport’s lighted wind sock and the tower itself in the day’s dawn.  Photos by Barry Fetzer.

Once again, this post is not about me, but instead it’s about the totality of the love, caring, and devotion of so many volunteers trying, in their small ways, to help.  “Many hands” as the Shaker saying says, “make light work” and that was, and is, certainly the case with the disaster relief work still ongoing on behalf of our fellow, western NC citizens.

And a big thanks goes out, too, to the leadership at the NC Department of Aviation and the KSOP’s KFQD’s leadership (both the authority boards and the airports’ management and employees) for their proactiveness, encouragement, flexibility, and dedication to helping our fellow citizens.

(Top to bottom): A Blackhawk being hot refueled, and a Chinook being hot refueled.  The refueling truck had to remain outside the Chinooks’ rotor blades arc and at the same avoid running over taxiway lights, so the CH-47 refueling hose had to be stretched to almost its full length!  And lastly, (L-R) Rutherford County Airport line technician, Eric LaRock; Kenan Advantage fuel tanker driver Michael; and Rutherford County Airport Manager, Devon Raisch.

Photos by Barry Fetzer.

But amidst the busyness of disaster relief operations at Rutherford County Airport, we did have several occasions to look up and take in the beauty of the foothill’s scenery in this part of our beautiful State and offer, while doing so, a prayer of thanks for that beauty and prayers of comfort for those of our fellow citizens who have lost loved ones and, as well, so many who lost their homes, businesses, and all of their personal belongings.  Continue the prayers. They’re badly needed.

The Rutherford County Airport runway and main taxiway during the dawn, pre-opening runway inspection.  Photo by Barry Fetzer.

(Top to bottom):  A sunset view from the parking lot of the Rutherford County Airport offices the day we arrived and a late afternoon “rays of hope” over a Rutherford County Airport refueler the day before we left.

  Photos by Barry Fetzer.

Onward and upward!