Cat Who Floated Away On Top Of Camper Roof In Hurricane Finds Way Back To Family

A North Carolina family was "helpless" as they watched their cat, Ricardo Blanco, disappear into floodwaters — but he surprised them eight days later.

A North Carolina family has reunited with a cherished pet cat they thought they’d lost to the churning floodwaters as Hurricane Helene slammed the region last week.

The Collins family was rushing to evacuate their property in Burnsville on Sept. 27 when their cat, named Ricardo Blanco and often called simply “Blanco,” got away from them in the chaos, Nan Collins told Southern Living magazine.

They next spotted the cat on top of the family’s camper, which became surrounded by water and began to float away.

The waterborne camper slammed into a neighbor’s house, which was also floating. The family watched in horror as the cat attempted to climb up the house’s metal roof, but fell into the water below.

“My heart sank,” Collins told the magazine, saying she felt “immense sadness at how helpless we were to help him.”