North Carolina Governor Josh Stein proclaimed April as “General Aviation Appreciation Month,” noting the critical role general aviation and community airports play “in the lives and well-being our citizens, as well as in the operation of our businesses and farms.”
One such airport is in Jackson County, sitting atop Berry Ridge above Cullowhee with an elevation of nearly 2,900 feet.
The Jackson County Airport is of one of 72 public airports in North Carolina; 10 of those are commercial, such as the Asheville Regional Airport, and the other 62 are general aviation, such as the one here in Jackson County. The other two general aviation airports here in western North Carolina are Macon County in Franklin and Western Carolina in Andrews.
Jim Rowell has been serving as the airport manager of Jackson County Airport for nearly 10 years. He says he has about 15 to 20 planes based at the airport, flying various places with some 4,200 operations (an operation is a takeoff or landing) each year. Eighty-five percent of those operations are with transient people, flying in and out of Jackson County for various reasons, such as “commerce, business, tourism, drop something else to the hospital, military training, emergency response people like the U.S. Forest Service.”
While people understand commercial aviation, Rowell noted, they don’t fully grasp the function of general aviation, which is part of the transportation infrastructure of the country and state. “It’s like highways, it’s like bridges, like railroads, and ferries. Anything that can happen on a road can happen at an airport,” he said.
Airport vital post-Helene
When Hurricane Helene came through Western North Carolina, the pace of operations at the Jackson County Airport increased dramatically and got the attention of many people in this area during emergency operations. Gov. Stein took notice, adding this to his proclamation – “Whereas, Hurricane Helene demonstrated the vital importance of our airport system in disaster response and the ethic of service and generosity of our general aviation community.”
Like an aircraft carrier carrying out busy flight operations during a military deployment, the Jackson County Airport, or as Rowell calls it, “USS Cullowhee,” became a very busy airport during the days following Helene’s wrath on our area.
“In 11 days (during Helene response) we had 30 percent of operations we would have during the year,” Rowell said. The airport was busy, very busy, primarily with fixed wing aircraft and some rotary wing aircraft landing and taking off in unprecedented numbers.
“When one airplane was taking off and landing at the Jackson County Airport every one minute and thirty seconds, people are saying ‘What’s going on?’ They started to call and say, ‘What’s happening?’”
The airport became a base of operations for emergency services.
“Nobody had any thoughts in Western North Carolina that the major east-west interstate – I-40 – would be closed in both directions,” Rowell said. “Nobody had any idea that at the same time that the major north-south interstate – I-26 – would be cut off at both ends at the same time.”
Secondary roads had trees and power lines across them and a number of bridges that were taken out.
“All of a sudden we woke up one morning, and we had none of the normal transportation modes available to us that we normally have, both for emergency services and just to get from one place to another,” Rowell said.
Rowell said the military used the Asheville airport as a base, with its longer runway, plenty of jet fuel and ability to accommodate both fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft, as a base for search and rescue and supply needs. People needed help.
“The general aviation community and citizens all around the area said ‘We want to help,’” Rowell said. “I came up to the airport Friday morning after Helene to assess the situation. Are we operational, do we have any damage? On Saturday morning, I came back up here, and I met three guys with veterans’ hats standing outside the gate. I said, ‘What’s up, guys?’ and they said they were trying to get into the airport because they had supplies coming in.
They said they had calls from other veterans’ groups, and they were putting together Operation Airdrop to take supplies to small airports that they can access.”
Cochran steps up
The tempo at the airport increased, and Rowell said a lot of that success was due to Crystal Cochran, vice president of Jackson County Veterans Association.
“It just started to grow, and by Sunday, it was rocking and rolling, and Crystal Cochran was on her cell phone constantly,” Rowell said.
While Jackson County suffered some damage, the bulk of the storm damage was east of Jackson. Realizing neighbors in counties like Haywood, Buncombe, Yancey, Mitchell, Henderson and others were hurting, Jackson residents and volunteers came calling.
“Veteran’s groups started it all, and they went out and got a corps of people and that spread out into the community, and spread out to the university,” Rowell said.
“Suddenly, I had 200 people up here mixing with 100 airplanes and a lot of other stuff, and the community volunteers stepped up,” Rowell said. “People just kept coming to the airport, and they asked me if we should block off the road and tell them we have all the help we could use. I said, ‘absolutely not … if they want to help, let them come help.’”
It was that kind of community involvement and spirit that Rowell was grateful to allow.
“What would happen is an airplane would land, and instead of having 20 people in a line unloading the airplane and bringing in supplies over to waiting trucks and trailers, we had 50 people in line. And when more people came, we had 75 people in line. The line got longer, but they got to participate and be involved in helping,” he said.
“Crystal was operating all the volunteers, and she was talking to the other locations where the supplies were going. They were calling her saying, ‘we need Starlink to a nursing home’ or ‘we need Insulin to a nursing home,’ and she would coordinate the delivery of those supplies,” Rowell said.
It’s a job not just anyone could do.
“Crystal became the figurehead. You need people who are loud and know how to move, and that was her. She didn’t take any crap,” Rowell, a pilot himself, said. “She called me her ‘partner in crime’ because everything that came through the gate I was responsible for and I delegated to her to handle the logistics side of things.”
Well-oiled machine
Rowell said Todd Dillard, director of Jackson County Emergency Management, and his team came up to the airport to see the operation in action. “They said it was a pretty well-oiled machine,” which allowed Dillard and his crew to tend to other emergency matters in the county.
“We can’t do what Emergency Management does, but we had our own little part of the world here that was bringing in supplies by air and getting it out where it needed to go,” Rowell said.
He recalls having a few helicopters operating at the airport, which created an interesting dynamic, considering the influx of fixed wing aircraft operating at that time.
“We had five CH-47 – Chinook – big, twin-engine, heavy lift aircraft here during a three-day period,” Rowell said. “Three of the Chinooks were out of the South Carolina National Guard, and they had trained here during the year, so they had absolutely no problem finding it (Jackson County Airport), and landing here. But I had to land those huge helicopters on the runway, because I didn’t have room to put them on the ramp because of too many people and airplanes, so I put one on one end of the runway, another in the middle of the runway, and one on the far end of the runway.”
Volunteers at Jackson County Airport, from all areas of the community, worked from sun-up to sun-down. They would unload supplies and resources at the airport – from water and food to chainsaws and generators.
“It was everybody working together to try to do the best they could. I’ve been living up here for 50 years,” Rowell said” There was as much community cooperation and as much volunteerism as I’ve ever seen go on at one time.”
Rowell previously worked in public relations and public information at Western Carolina University for three decades.
“It’s a testament to the people of Western North Carolina. They are always willing to help each other,” he said. “They grew up that way. Our roots in Western North Carolina are ‘You’re going to do it yourselves, no one else is going to do it for you.’ When you settle in this area, and you’ve got to move a tree stump to plant a crop, or you’ve got to cut the trees down to build your cabin, you’ve got to be self-sufficient. That self-sufficiency is a mountain trait that has not gone away, and I hope never goes away.”
Push to grow
The Jackson County Airport was constructed back in the mid-1970s by cutting off part of the mountain ridge and filling in the lower area. The runway was originally 3,800 feet long, but erosion at the south end has shortened it to 3,200 feet. There are proposals to rebuild it back to the original 3,800 feet, and long-term, possibly adding 200 feet to the north end of the runway for a total of 4,000 feet, a requirement for business aircraft.
View the governor’s full proclamation, to include the economic impact of general aviation and commercial airports, here:
https://governor.nc.gov/governor-proclaims-general-aviation-appreciation-month.
https://www.thesylvaherald.com/news/government/article_6457d2f1-e83c-4dd1-afc3-e1c966fd4d83.html