Howard and Lisa Ray were at their home in Pensacola, NC, when floodwaters from Hurricane Helene began to fill the trailer.
Lisa told Queen City News that they didn't believe they would be able to make it out alive, but then she described what happened next, saying,
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.
The sectional-sofa-turned-floatation-device carried them out into the raging Cane River, where they floated about 400 yards from the trailer. Their dog, Sadie, was nowhere to be seen.
Howard said,
While she was still on the couch, I remember just holding onto her. 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.'
When they reached a barbed-wire fence, Howard told his wife to jump, which she did, grabbing onto the fence and pulling herself out of the water.
The couple then took shelter in a nearby garage while they waited for the water to recede. Meanwhile, their trailer was completely destroyed.
Despite losing their home, vehicles, and all of their belongings in the flood, Howard walked to the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department station, where he serves as a lieutenant, just hours later.
I walked back to Pensacola to go help my boys because I ain't leaving my boys no matter how much I'm hurting.
Lisa was later taken to the hospital, where she was treated for wounds on her hands where she had grabbed the barbed wire. After she was released, she learned her best friend, Michelle Quintero, had been killed.
But in a small ray of sunshine, two days after the storm, the Rays returned to their destroyed home, and found their dog Saddi waiting for them.
We shouldn't be alive, but God has a purpose.
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