NEAR TAMPA, Fla. (WSVN) — A Florida mother is sharing her story after Hurricane Milton’s floodwaters left her and her children trapped in waist-deep water inside their home, but help came when they least expected it.
Amber Henry described the tense moments that unfolded inside their house, located about 40 minutes east of Tampa, Wednesday night.
“Around 10 o’clock. That’s when I seen water seeping in,” she said. “I was getting buckets and putting it down the drain, but then the house literally ate us with water.”
Henry feared she and her children weren’t going to make it out alive when water started pouring into their home.
“All I could do was pray, and I had to be brave,” she said, “and my daughter, she’s 10 years old and she’s about to be 11, and she told me, ‘Mom’ — her birthday’s on the 21st — and she told me, ‘Mom, I don’t want to die for my birthday.'”
Henry shared cellphone video she recorded with CNN where she described climbing up onto different furniture and appliances.
“We’re on top of the sink. Look at the whole house, the house, look at the house,” she is heard saying in the video. “Look, we’re on top of the oven, and look at the house, it’s done. I pray, God, come help us.”
Many families felt the same way. Videos show first responders rescuing people from their flooded homes after Milton moved through the state.
Families in several counties in the Tampa Bay area experienced the same panic Henry did.
“I’m a single mom. I have nothing but me and my children,” said Henry. “We were dark, we were in cold. I was afraid of snakes, I was afraid of being electrocuted, and I was afraid to actually be the one that passed away, and then my kids have to suffer.”
Milton made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane near Siesta Key, Wednesday night.
People all over Florida tried to get to higher ground.
“I just said, ‘You know what? I’m gonna go to the neighbor’s house. I know they’re not home,’ and I had to break in their house just to get higher level. It was very scary,” she said.
Henry described what happened next.
“I see somebody. Hold on, I see somebody. Hello! Hello! You’ve got to call 911, I’m trapped in house with four kids. Yes, with four babies,” she is heard saying in the cellphone video.
“So when I did see a person, it was so magical,” Henry told CNN, “and I just said, This is our time. We’re gonna die trying to get to that person. Me and my children will die trying to get out of this mess.'”
Those people weren’t first responders. It happened to be a local news crew.
Either way, Henry said, she is thankful her family got out and will be OK.
“I lost everything. I gain courage, and I gain strength, and I’m just trying,” she said. “I don’t even have a plan, but I’m taking day by day, and I just have to do that. I have to restart over again, I have to start my whole life over again.”
In Hillsborough County, where residents said they saw areas flood that typically don’t, deputies rescued roughly 135 people from an assisted living facility.
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