Miracle in the Rubble: Woman Finds iPhone 7 Months After Hurricane Helene Landslide

In the rugged aftermath of Hurricane Helene, a young North Carolina woman, Kylie Landolfi, unearthed a small miracle in the debris of her shattered life. Seven months after a catastrophic landslide obliterated her Bat Cave rental home in September 2024, the 22-year-old discovered her lost iPhone, buried but intact, amidst the rubble. "It felt like finding a piece of our past," she said, her voice tinged with awe.

Living with her 23-year-old boyfriend, Andrew, and their three pets, Landolfi barely escaped when the storm unleashed a torrent of earth that shoved their home off its foundation. "We fled with nothing—no shoes, no phones, just our lives and our pets," she recounted. Moments after their escape, a second landslide roared down the mountainside, burying their world in chaos.

Despite the terror, the couple’s resilience shone through. They aided an injured neighbor with a punctured lung and helped rescue a family of four, including a mother with a shattered ankle and a child with a broken leg. For 27 grueling hours, they sheltered in a nearby home, tending to the wounded until firefighters arrived. "Instinct and teamwork kept us going," Landolfi noted.

Returning to the site repeatedly yielded no trace of their belongings—until April 2025. With help from Bat Cave Disaster Relief, Landolfi dug through the wreckage and spotted her dust-covered iPhone. "It was a miracle," she said. The device, which held irreplaceable photos of their beloved ferrets and their lost home, had survived two landslides and months of exposure. "We’d grieved those memories, thinking they were gone forever," she added, noting their hard drive was also lost in the destruction.

The discovery wasn’t just about a phone—it was a reclaimed fragment of a life swept away. For Landolfi and Andrew, it’s a reminder that even in the wake of disaster, small victories can spark hope.