The destruction from Hurricane Helene makes it the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005.
Vicki Hunter couldn’t make sense of the giant trees rushing toward the front porch of her one-story home.
She watched them, stunned, as floodwater raged across her pasture and began to inundate the property. She yelled to her husband, Jerry, to get dressed in case they needed to evacuate.
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By the time he did, their cars were flooded and they could not flee. Rescue crews in boats tried to reach the house but were unsuccessful.
“One minute I’m baking cookies; in the next minute, I’m fighting for my life and my whole life has been turned upside down,” Vicki said Thursday.
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Jerry had been standing on the back porch Friday when the foundation gave way and suddenly the house was floating.
Vicki, who had been standing at the front of the house, was knocked over and launched into the water when it began to collapse.
She later learned from her rescuers that Jerry had jumped into the floodwaters at some point during the ordeal.
When they asked her whether her husband could swim, she said, "About as good as he can dance."
“He went in and never came up,” she said. “He was my soulmate. I just loved him so much. I want him here. I want him to be with me.”
Vicki floated with her destroyed home for about half a mile before it hit some trees. She desperately clung to a branch with one hand and to her dog, Batman, with the other before she lost her grip on his leash.
"The last I seen of him was his little head, and he was trying to doggy paddle," she said.
She prayed that someone would rescue her and everyone else caught in the storm.
She watched a neighbor's new trailer float by. A couple whose home was adrift stood dumbfounded as Vicki shouted and waved for help. They simply closed their door.
"I don't know if they were praying or what," Vicki said.
She later heard that the couple's house floated for another block or so until it "hit trees and disintegrated."
"They're still looking for Jim and his wife," Vicki said of her neighbors.
When rescuers arrived, she begged them to search for her husband.
“We have to save you,” a crew member responded.
Jerry, who did not survive, is one of more than 200 people killed by Hurricane Helene, which slammed into the Southeast last week. Hope that survivors will be found is quickly fading, and many isolated communities remain cut off from relief efforts.
Vicki said her family didn’t know for 36 hours after the storm lashed Jonesborough whether she had survived.
Her sister, whom she had called moments before her house broke off its foundation, watched in horror as a video surfaced online showing Vicki standing alone on the porch as the house floated away.
“Until you’ve lost a loved one, until you’ve been fished out of the water and the only thing you have on is a pair of pants, a pair of rubber boots that did nothing for you, until you get out of the water and all you have is what’s on your back, be grateful for everything you have,” she said. “Be grateful to be alive.”
Marissa Parra reported from Jonesborough and Alicia Victoria Lozano from Los Angeles.
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