‘All God’: North Carolina couple recounts surviving Helene by floating on couch

PENSACOLA, N.C. ( WJZY ) – Communities throughout North Carolina continue to recover from the destructive Hurricane Helene that moved through the area in September.

Many of those who remained in the area are now sharing their daring stories of survival, including Howard and Lisa Ray of Pensacola, North Carolina.

“I just want people to understand that you can’t give up, you’ve got to push no matter what,” Howard Ray told Nexstar’s WJZY while recounting their story.”I don’t understand. We shouldn’t be alive. There’s no way, it’s all God.”

Lisa showed WJZY a short clip of a barren property where their home used to stand. The flooding swamped their trailer swiftly and violently, she explained.

“I just knew we were dead,” Lisa said while describing what she calls an act of God that gave the Rays a chance to escape. “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.”

Incredibly, she and her husband held onto the sectional couch as a flotation device along the raging Cane River. The water line at that point was at least 25 to 30 feet above normal.

“While she was still on the couch, I remember just holding onto her,” said Howard. “And I remember her saying, ‘We’re going to drown.’ And I was like, ‘No, if we’re going to drown, we’re going to drown together.'”

They held on for dear life, riding the couch their dog, Saddi, loved to lay on.

“We eventually floated down 400 yards and I told [Lisa] to jump,” Howard recounted.

“When he said ‘Jump,’ I grabbed the barbed wire fence and wrapped my hand around it and pulled myself up,” Lisa said. Of course, sharp wire isn’t the ideal lifeline, but it was their only choice. She would later be hospitalized with cuts on her left hand.

In the meantime, the Rays took shelter in a garage for hours, waiting for the water to subside. Howard, a lieutenant with the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department, knew he was needed outside.

“My guys, they thought I was dead. Believe me, for a minute, I thought I was dead,” he said.

Despite the trauma he and his wife went through, Howard rushed back to join fellow firefighters in disaster mode.

“I walked back to Pensacola to go help my boys because I ain’t leaving my boys no matter how much I’m hurting or whatever,” said Howard.

After Lisa was released from the hospital, she learned her best friend Michelle Quintero died in the flooding.

“I just collapsed,” Lisa said of the moment she got the news.

Quintero lived in South Toe in Yancey County and worked as a captain with the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.

“She was a good person, she’s a great mother. She had one grandbaby and one grandbaby on the way,” says Lisa.

Through the pain and loss, the Rays and their community are moving forward together in Pensacola. Since Helene, kindness and compassion have ruled.

The Rays lost their home and vehicles but were reunited with their dog, Saddi, two days after the storm. She was waiting near where their house used to be.

Pleasant Valley Baptist Church found the Rays temporary housing, paying for an Airbnb for the next year, with donations from its Disaster Relief Fund. A GoFundMe has been set up to help get the couple back on their feet.

The Rays feel blessed no matter how little they’re left with.

“We shouldn’t be alive, but God has a purpose,” Lisa said. When asked what that purpose may be, Lisa responded: “I’m not sure, I’m still asking questions.”

“I think maybe what we’re doing right now maybe gets out and shows people that there is a God,” said Howard. “I know I might have lost everything but that doesn’t mean that I stop and that I’ve got to quit and just give up. That’s not who I am.”

Pleasant Valley Baptist accepts donations by mail to help ongoing Helene recovery efforts at: Pleasant Valley Baptist Church Disaster Relief Fund, P.O Box 576, Burnsville, NC 28714.

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