Hurricane Florence: Dog and owner reunited after pet was left stranded on floating sofa for days

Rescuers from the Humane Society of Missouri saved the dog in a dramatic scene caught on video

A small maltese dog named Soshe has been reunited with her owners after spending a week on a floating sofa after floods, brought on by Hurricane Florence, devastated parts of North Carolina last month.

Soshe’s owner, who was out of the state at the time, was unable to return to her flooded home in the town of Burgaw.

She made frequent calls to the Humane Society of Missouri (HSMO), who sent a team to North Carolina to help rescue animals trapped by the powerful storms.

The HSMO team, who were using Pender County Animal Control as a base of operations, made two attempts to find the stranded dog but the flooding was so severe that it made locating the house extremely difficult.

On their third attempt the motor on their boat stopped, so they had to paddle the rest of the way.

Finally, they spotted a home that seemed to match the description they had been given.

As the team approached, they could hear barking coming from inside the building.

The rescuers knocked in the door and found the terrified maltese dog floating on a couch in the living room. A team member seized the dog and they ferried her to safety.

Soshe’s family still hadn’t made it back to Burgaw, so a friend came to pick her up from a local animal shelter to finally reunite the dog with her owner.

The HSMO team captured several videos of their rescues across Pender County, including Soshe’s rescue, which gained widespread attention online as North Carolina continues to grapple with the aftermath of the disaster.

Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina as a Category 1 storm on 14 September.

Soshe was stranded for a week (HSMO) (HMSO)

Fifty-one people died in total during the storm, according to Reuters, including 39 people in North Carolina.

The powerful storm flattened trees, buckled buildings and knocked out power to nearly 930,000 homes and businesses as it battered the southeast coast of the US.

Animals suffered as Florence tore through the Carolinas.

Preliminary estimates suggested that 3.4 million poultry birds and 5,500 pigs were killed in the storm.

Soshe was rescued by HSMO staff (HSMO) (HMSO)

Soshe’s rescue delighted the rescue team.

“That was a good day,” Chad Gard, one of HSMO’s Disaster Team members told CBS News.

“We had boat problems and anything that could’ve went wrong did. And in the end, it was a fantastic day. We all felt really good.”