The last thing Megan Drye heard from her 7-year-old son Micah was his screams for help after he was washed away in the flood waters of Hurricane Helene.
Megan and Micah were separated when they went into the water, and she could not get to him in the raging river. But, she heard his cries.
“Jesus, save me!” she recalled him pleading — until he went quiet.
Dyre lost her son and both her parents in Asheville, North Carolina, after they were caught up in the flash floods that came with Helene — which left at least 227 people dead — a large portion of them in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
Dyre recounted her harrowing survival to The Post after her story went viral after her sister Jessica shared the family’s desperate final photos on Facebook.
Drye; her parents Michael and Nora, 73; Micah; and the family dog had huddled together on their roof as the nearby river rose and rose. They begged a 911 operator for help.
Sections of the house crumbled away and 18-wheeler trucks raced past in the floodwaters from the devastating storm, whose path of devastation
But even stuck on the roof, Drye thought the worst that could happen would be a night spent out in the cold – something they could all laugh about later.
Then the whole house started to move.
“We started drifting in the water. We were floating. The house was breaking apart,” Drye recalled.
The four clung to what remained of the roof, but a tangle of power lines dragged them into the water like leaves under a rake.
Drye never saw her son alive again, but for a few seconds, she heard his screams.
Drye and her father got caught in the branches of a tree, and she caught a glimpse of her mother floating past, trying to keep her head above water and yelling, “Michah’s back there!”
“I was trying to unwind myself from this tree so I could get to my son, but I was stuck. Every time I let go, the water was pushing me back. It was pushing buildings, cars, trailers. I had no chance to swim back,” Drye said.
What happened next comes in flashes: Being swept away from her father. Letting go of the backpack that held her little dog. Wedging herself into the corner of two shipping containers as the water slammed into her like “ocean waves against a cliff.”
Drye was spotted by a cop directing traffic on a nearby bridge, kicking off an hours-long fight for survival as rescuers struggled to reach her before her strength failed or the rushing torrent dragged her off the containers.
“All of a sudden, I hear them screaming at me, and I looked up, and an 18-wheeler is coming at me. It crashed directly into the boxes, but they didn’t move,” she said. “I watched that 18-wheeler crumple like a piece of paper, and it went underwater. That’s unimaginable without the grace of God.”
Eventually she found a handhold and managed to scramble to the top of one container — to cheers and thumbs-up from the watchers on the bridge — where she was rescued.
“When I got to the hospital, it was chaos. Total chaos. And this woman comes up to me and says, ‘Oh my god, are you OK? I need to pray for you. Are you OK?’ And I said, ‘No, my son is out there! Please look for my son!’”
When the waters receded, the only thing left of her parents’ house was a trail of bricks leading into Asheville’s French Broad River.
Rescuers found the bodies of her father and son a few days later.
It took them eight days to locate the remains of her mother, which washed up on the grounds of Asheville’s historic Biltmore Estate a half-mile away.
For Drye’s sister, Jessia Drye-Turner, recovering her mother’s body was the final chapter of a week-long nightmare.
“My stubborn-ass mom, she’s so feisty, she freaking kept her backpack on her so she could be ID’d,” Drye-Turner said. “I know she was having conversations with Jesus, saying, ‘I need to know they can identify my body.’”
Other survivors haven’t been as lucky, she said.
“There are so many other people who have gone through worse than us,” she said. “There might be people who don’t know where their loved ones are, whose loved ones are in Raleigh, where they’re keeping the unidentified bodies.”
Even Megan Drye, who is currently staying with another sister in Minnesota, tries to find a light in the darkness.
“There are no words to describe losing half of your heart, losing your child or your parents,” she said. “But I know they are at peace. My parents’ faith was strong, and they are where they want to be. My son’s last words were calling out to Jesus, and I know he is happy with Jesus now.”
“And I really want to ask for prayers for people caught up in Hurricane Milton right now, who are going through the same things we did,” she added. “That’s the message I want to send, one of God’s grace giving us hope.”
