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Mass. bride’s N.C. bachelorette party turns into a hurricane nightmare
“If it weren’t for the kindness of neighbors providing us with hose water and food, it would have been a much worse situation.”
A celebratory weekend quickly turned sour when Hurricane Helene stranded a bride-to-be from Walpole and her 10 friends in the mountains near Asheville, North Carolina, disrupting their bachelorette party.
In a Facebook post, bride-to-be Kayla Donnelly said they were trapped for three days on the mountain with limited resources and no running water or power.
Donnelly said the group ran out of fresh water on the first day.
“If it weren’t for the kindness of neighbors providing us with hose water and food, it would have been a much worse situation,” she wrote.
After three days, a neighbor warned the group that they needed to evacuate by hiking down the mountain or risk being trapped for weeks.
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So, the 11 of them left their things behind and hiked hours down the mountain through the “treacherous debris.”
According to a CBS News report, several of the women on their journey down Elk Mountain got poison ivy, blisters, and bruises, and one ended up hospitalized at home with an infected bee sting.
A retired firefighter helped them reach a safety zone at Lowe’s. Another man drove the group to an open airport, away from the flooding.
North Carolina is still reeling from the devastation days after Hurricane Helene ripped through the region.
Officials in North Carolina, which saw the worst flooding in a century, are working to get more water, food, and supplies to areas without power and cellphone service. The death toll as of Monday was reaching 100.
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The Associated Press reported that Western North Carolina faced more devastation because the remnants of Helene hit the cooler, higher elevations of the Appalachian Mountains, resulting in heavier rainfall.
Asheville and surrounding mountain towns built in valleys left them vulnerable to devastating rain and flooding.
Plus, Christiaan Patterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told the AP that the ground was already saturated before Helene arrived.
“By the time Helene came into the Carolinas, we already had that rain on top of more rain,” Patterson told the AP.
Donnelly said she made the Facebook post because hundreds of people remain stuck on the mountain and need help.
“These are some of the most incredible, helpful, and kind people I have ever met,” she wrote. “They need rescue and are running out of resources. Not all are able to make that trip down the mountain.”
Boston.com was unable to reach Donnelly by the time of publication.
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