A North Carolina couple who rode out Hurricane Helene on their sofa before crediting God with saving them opened up about the blaze of faith that has kept afloat after the one-two punch of disaster demolished their town.
The hurricane struck the Big Bend region of Florida last September and continued on through Georgia, then into the Carolinas before heading to Virginia, turning westward toward Tennessee. Authorities called the catastrophic impact of Helene, which struck as a powerful Category 4 hurricane in some regions, staggering.
Howard Ray and his wife, Lisa, are grateful to be alive after a wall of water washed over the edge separating Escambia Bay from their trailer during flooding in Pensacola. But they believe God helped them flee.
“People need to see that you never give up; keep on pushing no matter what,” Howard said in an interview with the Queen City News. “I don’t understand. We should not have survived; no way in hell, it is all God.
Queen City News also posted a brief video of the empty property where their home once stood. Lisa thought the couple was going to die when she saw a wave of water burst in and started filling their trailer.
The trailer started filling up and it was it’s like this is God opened a piece up, so we sat on that couch, but then you had to float out,” she said.
They floated down the Cane River hanging onto that couch for dear life. This far from shore, the water line was a good 25–30 feet above normal but it did not matter; they had their improvised lifeboat.
“Even when she was lying on the couch, I just remember holding her,” Howard said. She had said to me, ‘We are going down,’__() Whenever it was time to push, she kept insisting that I must hold onto her nurse instead of going forward as well. “No,” I said with tears in my eyes remembering how weak and helpless last year came back for a while before being put on the charge again, cruel cycle silencing me down into darkness until eventually making sense so much abruptly fell off or worse still stuck wildly awake suddenly lifelessly upright they told themselves want someone else save please say such otherwise only wanted some safety blanket somewhere dry where nobody knew about we could live peacefully young men without knowing everybody watching one another most might prefer talking clearly enough walking fine straight past others right out from vulnerability among far buried deep safe asleep unable go there lost hope keep hiding away like shaking legs shake — slowly slipping… Oh wait!!! ”
It went on for 400 yards as Howard floated there helplessly, clasping onto the couch until he told his wife to jump. Lisa, after hearing her husband shout instructions to grab the barbed-wire fence and yank herself up with all of her strength; She took the sharp wire in her hand, it cut but they needed a lifeline and soon found refuge in a garage.
She and her husband stayed in the garage for a couple of hours while waters receded.
Howard went back to Pensacola when he heard of the hurricane looking for ways that he could help as a lieutenant with the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department.
“Just sayin, I walked back to Pensacola to go help my boys because I ain’t leaving my boys no matter how much im hurting.
Lisa’s injuries on her left after caused her to hospitalized soon thereafter, and the couple has numerous other wounds they are recovering from due to the ordeal. While Lisa was in the hospital, she found out that her friend Michelle Quintero had perished when floodwaters claimed both lives.
Then she said, “I just fell down.. She was good; she’s a wonderful mother. She had a grandbaby and another one on the way.
The flooding left Lisa and Howard homeless, with both of their cars washed away. They are doing everything they can in the aftermath to stand up again. Through it all, though, the couple hasn’t lost sight of the God Who came to their rescue; He was also there when they had a desperate need.
The couple is staying in an Airbnb for the next year on donations from a disaster relief fund at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church, Queen City News reported.
After the storm, two days later these women were back with their dog Saddi…waiting along side where they had parked that JEep and once sat thier home.
That Lisa still thinks “God has a purpose” is the only reason she knows they’re alive at all, but even then it hardly means anything. She says her husband thinks God spared them because what they’re doing now “shows people there’s a God.”
” Yes I know, “i probably lost everything “”Well that doesn’t give me the right to just stop and because i failed then its over for you like pfft,” Howard said. “That’s not who I am.”
As Christian Post reported last week in an interview with Cajun Navy 2016 Chaplain (working the western NC rescue effort) The organization, also known as Pinnacle Search & Rescue and others are among several groups who came to the hardest hit areas.
Chaplain Mitch Collier was less than impressed with the federal response to Katrina and said that FEMA in particular took its sweet time getting inspiration from other parts of government or industry. Collier, who has been in almost every major storm zone in the United States since 2017 assisting with relief efforts listed the destruction left by Helene as among the worst he had ever seen.
“Man, it has been hard,” Collier said. But luckily I have the strength of the Lord in me, because there’s some people who wouldn’t be able to handle what we’ve seen, trying to recover things from a buinding and through these landslides that happened right up on them. Unbelievable devastation it is or was when you’re looking at 80 blocks thinking ‘the worst block’ but they would say “No see it actually getting better than this.”
“God is good. God sent us up here. I run into some people that I believe God brought my way. One guy even said I saved his life. I told him, ” God saved your life.” “
