As of Tuesday, Hurricane Helene has claimed over 230 lives across six states, with hundreds still unaccounted for.
Among the victims were twin boys, Khyzier and Khazmir Williams, believed to be the youngest to perish in the storm. The five-week-old infants died with their mother, Kobe Williams, when a tree crashed through their mobile home in Thomson, Georgia.
“Nobody took the storm seriously,” said Mary Jones, Williams’ mother and the boys’ grandmother, in an interview with Today.com. “Then it hit, and the wind was deafening. When the power went out, Kobe got scared. She was worried about her babies.”
Jones and her daughter stayed awake through the night as the hurricane ravaged their neighborhood. At around 5:15 a.m., Jones fed Khyzier so Williams could rest, though she was too anxious to sleep.
Jones eventually dozed off while Williams remained awake. Less than an hour later, Jones was startled awake by a “strange shushing sound” and an eerie stillness.
She went to check on her daughter and found a tree had torn through Williams’ bedroom.
“I screamed, ‘Kobe! Please answer me!’ But it was pitch black, and all I could see were tree branches,” Jones recalled.
Neighbors rushed over to help, but the debris was too thick to reach them. When the police arrived, they confirmed everyone’s worst fears.
“I asked if they were alive, and one officer said, ‘It’s bad, don’t go in there,’” Jones remembered. “And that’s when I completely broke down.”
Markeya Jones, Jones’ granddaughter, shared a heartbreaking detail: “Kobe was holding the babies in her arms when the tree struck her. She was trying to protect them.”
Hurricane Helene is the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
As the cleanup continues, residents in the southeast are bracing for another potential disaster as Hurricane Milton approaches the Tampa Bay area.
The devastation left by Hurricane Helene is unimaginable. So many lives and families were torn apart in an instant.
Please keep all those affected in your thoughts and prayers.