Part-time Miami-Dade resident rescued from Hurricane Helene flooding in NC
MIAMI: Normally a quiet creek passes by Jim Kiltie's home about an hour outside of Asheville, North Carolina.
After Hurricane Helene dumped 2 1/2 feet of rain last week, Kiltie said it looked like the Colorado River.
"We've never expected anything like that," Kiltie said.
For half the year, Kiltie lives in Westchester in Miami-Dade County. He had just gotten up to his place in the mountains when Helene barged in.
He was trapped.
"I was sort of on a little island with one other family. The roads washed out between me and town, and then above me the bridge washed out," Kiltie said.
He was left with no power, no water and no communication.
As he sat in the dark Kiltie said he was thinking about his family. "How are my children ever going to find out whether I'm dead or alive?" Jim wondered.
In South Florida, his kids went four days with no word if he made it.
"We were not sure whether the house was still there, whether he had gotten washed away like that was the thing that we didn't know," his son, Jeff, said.
Finally they got say message saying "Jim Kiltie is safe."
"We saw a screenshot of this, SOS string of texts that said, please notify this person, this person, this person. So that was the first word, and that was on Sunday," Jeff Kiltie said.
In North Carolina, a retired Fort Lauderdale firefighter rigged a makeshift bridge to get Kilte and his neighbors to a helicopter and safety.
"It was a little scary," he said. "They had put down a ladder with a 2-by-4 tied to it and a rope handle so you could hold on to the rope and walk across. And it was OK, even for an old man."
After riding in a helicopter, Kiltie caught a ride to Jacksonville where he was reunited with his family Wednesday.
"(I'm) just happy to be out. And I feel sorry for a number of people with, you know, losing homes and and a few people losing their lives," Kiltie said.
While be is grateful to be back in South Florida with family, he's looking forward to getting back to North Carolina a soon as he can. He figures it will probably be a few months before the roads are put back in and the power is on.