Mike Cronin

mcronin@citizen-times.com

ASHEVILLE - No certified cable railway system exists in North Carolina.

Yet an unauthorized one has been operating for an unknown number of years near the summit of Mount Pisgah’s roughly 5,720-foot peak. N.C. Department of Labor officials found it unsafe last year in an inspection, and they ordered the owners and operators, WLOS News 13 and its parent company, Maryland-based Sinclair Broadcasting Group, to shut it down on Jan. 30, 2015.

The system, also called a funicular, was never supposed to be running at all — even before state officials issued the shutdown order. Labor Department officials say the lift has been operating without authorization during the entirety of its existence.

State law “requires the funicular to have a certificate issued by the N.C. Department of Labor prior to operating, and the department has not issued one,” said Dolores Quesenberry, the Labor Department’s chief spokesperson.

How much did Mount Pisgah rescue cost?

A malfunction with the funicular triggered a massive rescue operation in January on Mount Pisgah. Based on information provided by state and Haywood County emergency personnel related to that operation, WLOS and Sinclair appear to have ignored the shutdown order for the funicular.

State emergency personnel reported a WLOS engineer became stranded in about 2 feet of snow when the cable railway system stopped working. Ralph Rodriguez called his colleagues to report he was trapped on the mountain.

A WLOS employee then called Haywood County 911 Communications, which mobilized the rescue teams, said Greg Shuping, Haywood County emergency services coordinator. More than 50 state, county and municipal emergency responder personnel, 14 vehicles and a North Carolina National Guard Black Hawk helicopter were involved. State and county officials could not provide a total cost for the rescue.

Barry Faber, Sinclair's general counsel and a company executive vice president, earlier this month described in another media report that company employees were using the funicular as "rumor." He did not return a phone message and an email from the Citizen-Times requesting comment.

Investigation underway

A top Labor Department official rode the funicular during an inspection of the cable railway system in January 2015, after the state received an email from a supervisor of one of the companies whose employees used the cable railway. The email expressed concerns that the system was unsafe.

Lift maintenance and insurance documents and copies of emails written by state officials, obtained by the Citizen-Times, confirm that the cable railway has been running without certification.

But Labor Department officials could not say how long that’s been. Quesenberry said the department did not know who built the funicular or when.

She said department officials for weeks have been investigating whether WLOS and Sinclair operated the cable railway system after the shutdown order on Jan. 30, 2015. Conclusion of the investigation could take weeks longer, Quesenberry said.

In an email dated Jan. 22, 2015, Tommy Petty, a Labor Department deputy bureau chief, asked Rollin Tompkins, chief engineer at WLOS, who built the lift and when. Labor officials could not provide any documents that show Tompkins responded to Petty’s questions.

Sinclair attorney Janet McHugh objected to the shutdown order, writing in an email on Feb. 2, 2015, to Labor Department officials that “we have been assured in the past that this cable car is not subject to the Amusement Device Safety Act of North Carolina.”

McHugh further wrote that the state’s shutdown order jeopardized WLOS’ “legal obligation to broadcast certain information and alerts that are critical to the community.” She also wrote that 17 companies and state and federal agencies required the funicular in case of an equipment failure to ensure that critical communication be broadcast “with no interruption” from the tower on Mount Pisgah.

Those include the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI, the North Carolina flood warning system and the National Weather Service.

Quesenberry pointed out that “Ms. McHugh doesn’t specify who assured her,” but the Department of Labor has jurisdiction over the device, she said.

McHugh did not respond to a phone message and an email request from the Citizen-Times for comment.

Report: 27 items to fix

N.C. Labor Department officials became aware problems might exist with the funicular in early January 2015, when a former facilities director at the Raleigh-based University of North Carolina Center for Public Television emailed the state construction office about her and her colleagues’ safety concerns regarding the cable railway.

"The cable car has run off the track in the past, and there is no emergency brake,” Carol Woodyard wrote in the email to Latif Kaid, the interim director of the state construction office.UNC-TV is one of the organizations whose employees use the lift to get to and from the tower, according to the Labor Department's March 2015 inspection report sent to McHugh.

That report identified 27 items that WLOS would have to fix “before the device could be certified to operate,” Quesenberry said. Because that list was only preliminary, more items requiring repair could exist, she said.

Examples the report cited included “no carrier brake or cable brake on the funicular,” “no operator at the station” and “no record of a full load test ever being done on this funicular. In addition, no one knew what the weight limit was for each carrier.”

Labor Department officials never received notification that any of those issues had been resolved, Quesenberry said.

Though Labor Department officials are investigating whether WLOS and Sinclair violated the shutdown order, state and county government documents suggest they did.

A news release issued on Jan. 26 by Julia Jarema, a North Carolina Department of Public Safety spokesperson, indicated Rodriguez used the funicular on a regular basis.

“The cable car used to transport (Rodriguez) to and from the transmitting equipment stopped working, leaving him about 400 feet down an embankment in more than 2 feet of snow,” Jarema wrote in the release.

Another news release issued on Jan. 26 by Sgt. Heidi Warren, of the Haywood County Sheriff’s Office, also indicates the funicular was in regular use during the year after the Labor Department’s shutdown order.

“The cable car path, used to winch supplies up the mountain, is along a very steep incline,” Warren wrote.

No penalties exist under state law for the uncertified use of a funicular, Quesenberry said.

But “penalties come into play when an employee has been exposed to a hazard or injured, which is the case in the incident involving the rescue on Mount Pisgah, which is under investigation by the (Labor Department’s) Occupational Safety and Health Division,” she said.

The maximum fine for each “willful violation” is $70,000 and for each “serious violation” is $7,000, according to state law.

An 'impossible' feat: How Pisgah tower keeper was rescued

Organizations operating atop Mount Pisgah as of February 2015

WLOS News 13

WKSF-FM

SAGA Communications (Commercial FM Translator)

National Weather Service

Buncombe County Emergency Services

Haywood Electric Membership Corporation

Haywood County 911

Cruso Fire Department

Civil Air Patrol (Fleet License File)

Regional Amateur Radio Repeater

U.S. Secret Service

FBI

Blue Ridge Parkway

North Carolina Wildlife Commission

Haywood Cable TV

North Carolina flood warning system

UNC-TV

Source: Janet McHugh, attorney for Maryland-based Sinclair Broadcasting Group, email letter to North Carolina Department of Labor on Feb. 2, 2015