Dog Saved From 20-Foot Tree After Being Swept Away In Helene Flooding

A small dog that authorities said was washed 20 feet into a tree by the powerful floodwaters of Hurricane Helene last week is back on solid ground thanks to some local firefighters and a K-9 unit in east Tennessee.

The gray and white dog was plucked from a nest of debris near the Nolichucky River in Washington County on Wednesday after a K-9 search team alerted rescuers on the ground to her whereabouts, the Kingsport Fire Department said in a statement.

Firefighters with the department were able to climb the tree with a ladder and retrieve the dog before giving her food and water.

“A lot of people were displaced, and the waters came up pretty fast. So them finding that dog yesterday was a bright spot in the middle of this chaos,” Barry Brickey, a public information officer with the Kingsport Fire Department, told HuffPost.

The dog was taken to a local animal control facility and reunited with her family on Thursday morning, Makayla Cloyd, who identified herself as a cousin of the dog’s owner, told HuffPost.

“She was in the tree for about 5 days. No known injuries,” Cloyd said of the dog in an online message.

In online posts, Cloyd helped raise awareness about her cousin’s two dogs and cat after his family’s home was swept away Friday by the floodwaters, not long after he was able to evacuate his wife and children. As of Thursday afternoon, the other dog and the cat remained missing, she said.

“By the time they got back the water had already rose to the front door and water was surrounding them,” she said in an online message to HuffPost. With the water rapidly rising, Cloyd’s cousin ended up taking refuge on a neighbor’s roof with his grandfather, she said.

“His papaw and him sat on the roof for 3 hours waiting on the