As of Tuesday, more than 230 people across six states have been killed from Hurricane Helene, and hundreds are still missing.
Among the dead are Khyzier and Khazmir Williams, twin boys, who are believed to be the youngest Hurricane Helene victims. The five-week-old twins died alongside their mother, Kobe Williams, when a tree crashed through their mobile home in Thomson, Georgia.
“Nobody was taking the storm seriously,” Mary Jones, Williams’ mother and the boys’ grandmother, told Today.com. “Then it started, and the wind was so loud. When the lights went off, Kobe got really scared. She was worried about the babies.”
Jones and her daughter stayed up through the night listening to the hurricane wreak havoc outside their home. Around 5:15 a.m. Jones fed Khyzier so Williams could get some rest, but she couldn’t sleep because she was scared.
Jones eventually fell asleep while Williams remained awake. Less than an hour after Jones drifted off to sleep she awoke to a “strange shushing” sound followed by an eerie silence.
She went to investigate and discovered a tree had crashed through her daughter’s bedroom.
“I started screaming, ‘Kobe! Answer me! Please answer me!’ It was so dark and I couldn’t see anything except branches.”
Neighbors came running and attempted to locate Williams and her boys, but the debris was too thick. When police arrived they confirmed everyone’s worst fears.
“I asked, are they alive? And (one officer) said, ‘It’s bad, don’t go in there,” Jones said. “And I just lost it. I lost it.”
“She was holding the babies in her arms when the tree fell on her head. She was trying to protect them,” Jones’s granddaughter, Markeya Jones, recalled.
Hurricane Helene is the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
As residents continue to clean up, many in the southeast are bracing for what could be another record-breaking storm as Hurricane Milton barrels towards the Tampa Bay Area.
I have no words for the amount of devastation left behind from Hurricane Helene. It breaks my heart that so many people’s families and livelihoods were destroyed in a matter of moments.
Please pray for everyone impacted.