Two people from North Carolina say they are lucky to be alive after being swept away on a floating couch by Hurricane Helene.
Howard and Lisa Ray said that Hurricane Helene’s very high water pushed their house hundreds of feet away. A few weeks ago, the couple told Queen City News that they were able to hide on a couch while their house filled with water.
Lisa Ray told the news source, “I just knew we were dead.” “The trailer started filling up, and it’s like, it’s like [God] opened a piece up and I just had to sit down on that couch, and we floated out.”
Along the Cane River, which was 25 to 30 feet above average at the time, the couple said they held on.
“All I could do was hold on to her while she was still on the couch,” Howard Ray told Queen City News. “I remember her telling me, ‘We’re going to drown.'” “No, if we’re going to drown, we’re going to drown together,” I said.
Howard Ray said that he told Lisa to jump and then jumped over a barbed wire fence that was a long way down the river. She later had to go to the hospital because she cut her hand.
Lisa told Queen City News, “We shouldn’t be alive, but God has a plan.”
There is a GoFundMe page set up to help the couple.
There are many people still getting better after the storm, not just the couple from Yancey County. Kathy Ayers told Carolina Public Press that the floods washed away her sister’s trailer home and flooded her whole basement.
With the help of different government and non-profits, many homes and companies in Yancey and Mitchell counties are still cleaning up and rebuilding.