Woman Uses Social Media To Help Find Mom, 78, Whose Home Flooded In Hurricane Ian

October 3, 2022

A woman has been reunited with her 78-year-old mother after using social media to find her in the wake of Hurricane Ian.

woman reunited with mom hurricane ian
Beth Booker reunites with her mom, Carole McDanel

Beth Booker of Naples, Florida, took to Twitter last week after seeing photos of her mother's home in Fort Myers Beach submerged in water.

"I have never felt more helpless in my life," she wrote on Twitter. "I called my mom and it went to voicemail. I'm praying that she put her phone on airplane mode to save battery. So scared. Can't stop shaking.

Please, angels. Get her through this.

I can't believe this is happening."

Beth told GMA that she and her husband helped her mom, Carole McDanel, prepare her home for the hurricane.

"She stayed because it was heading north for Tampa and we had no idea that it would be as bad as it turned out," Beth said. "That house had survived multiple major hurricanes in history, Charley and Irma included, and she felt safe there."

In her last phone call with her mom, Beth said she told her mom to climb on the roof as a last resort if the flood waters continued to rise.

Unable to communicate with her mom any longer, Beth turned to Twitter, using the hashtag #GetCaroleHome and asking her followers for help with everything from searching for McDanel to contacting local emergency officials.

"You see this kind of stuff happen on the news. You see this on social media. You see it happen in other cities and you know it can happen here when you live in Florida. We all know that," she said in a video on Twitter. "But when it's actually happening to you, it is honestly unbelievable."

On Sept. 29, Beth tweeted the news that her mother had been found safe in her home.

Carole said in a statement to GMA that she feels grateful for the support she and her family received.

"I have so much gratitude for the overwhelming support I've received from people around the world, complete strangers, who were wishing for my well-being during Hurricane Ian," she said. "That positive energy and those prayers were felt by me through one of the most isolating and uncertain moments in my life."