EAGAN, Minn. — The destruction from Hurricane Helene is unimaginable.
More than 130 are dead and hundreds more are missing. Some cities are now completely isolated, making delivery of even basic supplies and communication nearly impossible.
One of the hardest hit towns, some 600 miles from where the storm made landfall, is the popular Asheville, North Carolina.
A local family, from Eagan, happened to be there visiting to celebrate their uncle's 90th birthday. But by Saturday, siblings Judy, Jim and Joyce decided to drive back to Minnesota.
"After we got in overnight, the storm hit and sometime around 3 a.m., we lost electricity," said Judy Hepworth. "The water stopped working in the afternoon and that's when we realized things were not going to get better."
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They rented a mini-van, but now they're unsure how to return it. Joyce Norman said the company is adamant they have to return it in Asheville.
"I don't know what we're going to do," said Norman. "I'm baffled and we had to use it."
The storm dropped as much as two feet of rain in North Carolina alone. The disaster, though, is spread across at least five other states.
"In the morning, the gas station was underwater," said Norman.
"And then every way we went, there were trees down," said Hepworth.
"It was just focus, we just got to get out of here," said their brother, Jim Norman. "We were driving the wrong way, we were driving straight east, but we knew there was only one way out to the east from where we were."
The treacherous journey took them on mountain roads and in the more vulnerable valleys with few options to escape. The remnants of the hurricane interacted with the higher elevations and cooler temperatures which meant more rain.
"We went up and over a hill and all of our phones pinged and came back on," said Hepworth. "That was like, we felt like we had reached safety."
Only now, are they starting to process the ordeal.
"We sat around and we began sharing because we held it in because we had to act as a team to get out of there," said Jim.
The family recognizes they are lucky to be alive and are thankful they were able to escape.
Nearly 2 million people are still without power across the region, but FEMA is now on the ground and helping deliver water and ready-to-eat meals in particular.