Drone photographer Quavas Hart decided to take his drone out
on Sunday to capture images of some of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane
Matthew.
"I happened to come across this neighborhood that was
completely submerged in water," Hart tells The Two-Way. He posted a
picture on Twitter showing the dramatic scene of a cul-de-sac with floodwaters
up to the eaves of the roofs.
As it turned out, Navy veteran Chris Williams and his
elderly dog Lana were trapped in the house with one blue shutter to the right
of the picture.
Williams thought he was out of the hurricane's path when his
power went out a day and a half before, according to his twin brother, Craig
Williams, who lives in Texas. "During that day and a half," Craig
told The Two-Way, "the hurricane shifted paths and was coming directly
towards him."
Chris went to sleep on Saturday night — and woke up to a
bang. The surging water had broken through his back door, sending furniture
crashing around the house. He grabbed Lana and raced to the highest point in
the house, a small room where he had some food stored. "He spent the next
14 hours sitting there," Craig said.
During this time, both Craig and Chris tried to contact
local emergency services to reach rescue crews — to no avail. Chris' phone line
was down but the brothers were able to stay in touch over Facebook Messenger. When
Craig finally got in contact with rescuers on Sunday, they eventually told him
they weren't able to get to his brother's area.
Then Craig spotted Quavas' dramatic cul-de-sac picture on
Twitter, and wrote a joking note to Chris: "Hey, at least you're not this
guy."
It only took a few seconds for Chris to respond: "Hey,
that's my house."
Craig immediately reached out to Quavas with this plea:
"Any chance you can boat him out of there? He's trapped upstairs."
But Craig messaged again that he was "completely
serious." He explained that his brother had an "old dog with him that
can't swim."
So Quavas rushed back to the flooded neighborhood to try to
help rescue Chris. He says he deployed the drone again, and spotted a FEMA boat
nearby. He managed to signal the boat to follow his drone, and then led the
rescuers to Chris' house.
Quavas is also a veteran — he says he served in the Army for
10 years, with deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. The father of four left the
military in July 2012 and went to film school. "It's kind of like
replacing my weapon with my camera, from my perspective."
He's still coming to terms with the serendipitous rescue.
"It's just so wicked crazy amazing, humbling, I don't know how to explain
it," he says. Quavas adds that his home was also damaged in the floods.
