Newburgh native shares harrowing story of surviving Hurricane Helene

HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) — Hurricane Helene devastated millions of people across several states, making landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane. Catastrophic flooding wreaked havoc in North Carolina. This has turned many lives upside down, as entire communities have been flattened.

Mary Blanke is a travel nurse from Newburgh, who had just taken a job in Asheville, North Carolina prior to the storm. While one may think “how unlucky” that timing is, Mary says it is exactly where she is meant to be.

“Originally I thought I was going to go home and now I’m like where else would I go,” says Mary.

Mary recounts the shock she endured waking up to the sound of emergency alerts and feeling water to her ankles when she stepped out of bed. She then went into survival mode.

“I started to think okay I need to pack a bag, the water just started rising,” says Mary. “Once my bed started floating I was like… I need to get out.”

Finally managing to get on her neighbors roof, Mary could take a breath.

“We looked around and could see our neighbors on their roofs and we just kind of yelled back and forth to each other to see if everyone was okay,” said Mary.

In those moments she did not know what would happen next, and Mary leaned on her faith as she always does.

“I was just praying and singing,” says Mary.

When she asked God for a miracle, it came.

“All of a sudden I saw someone getting on a kayak,” says Mary. “When I saw this I remembered a church joke my dad used to tell about a guy who gets deserted in the ocean on a log… that’s all I could think about. I see the man with a kayak and I’m like ‘Okay God, I’m taking you up on this kayak.'”

When you grow up, you’re taught to call 911 if you need help. But Mary says the roads were gone, she knew it could be hours before someone could get there to help them. So her neighbors embodied the true meaning of “community” and saved each other.

“When push comes to shove, people are good,” says Mary.

Mary, like millions of others, is a victim in this storm but she knew her job in all of this had only just started.

“I’m a nurse and if someone could get me to the hospital I could help,” says Mary.

A nurse Mary works with then gave her something so simple, yet so valuable in that moment. She gave something many of us may take for granted, “shoes off her own feet.”

“Even though everything is gone, I’ve never felt so rich”, says Mary. “Things are replaceable.”

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