"A tree had gone through our roof. Part of the attic landed on the bed where one of the girls would have been sleeping," said Melissa Nessman, who is now back home in Santa Monica after finding herself in the path of Hurricane Helene.
Helene and its devastation in Asheville, North Carolina has Nessman counting her blessings, and recounting her sister-in-law's bachelorette trip turned nightmare.
"I think on Saturday that's when it really hit us, like we could be here for a couple days, a week... one person who saw us down there said we'll be stuck there for a month, and that's when panic really did settle in," said Nessman.
She and a group of seven other women found themselves stranded on Elk Mountain in the Asheville area after the storm slammed the area on Thursday -- washing out roads, toppling trees and knocking out power and communications.
The ladies, unable to call for help, spend the weekend in their Airbnb with limited cell phone service, water and food.
"We only really had a rotisserie chicken and 36 eggs, so we are eating food that definitely was already spoiled. By then our fridge went out," Nessman said.
Neighbors with generators offered up food to fuel Nessman and her group, who eventually decided to set out on a 5-mile hike down the mountain after learning that another stranded bachelorette party had successfully made it down a day earlier.
"We just packed up our backpacks, said goodbye to all the material things," said Nessman. "On Monday at around 7:15, we started our decent down the mountain.. when I tell you these trees were huge. We were climbing over them, under them."
"When we knew what their plan was, they were going to hike down this mountain five, six miles and get to safety somehow. We just all prayed for them," said Steven Roberts, Nessman's fiancé and bride's brother.
Roberts is among the group's thankful members.
Nessman said that many of the people in the Elk Trail Community are older and retired and are unable to hike down. She said that they may be stranded for a few more weeks, and is encouraging donations to the Red Cross, Salvation Army and United Way.