North Carolina’s Jesse Craig is mourning the loss of 11 family members who were killed by a mudslide caused by the “biblical devastation” of Hurricane Helene.
Among those dead are Jesse’s mother and father, and the houses in the small community called “Craigtown,” where generations of the tight-knit family lived for 80 years.
Keep reading to learn more about this tragic story.
After destroying parts of Florida, Hurricane Helene made its way north, unleashing its fury as it ripped apart everything along its wicked path.
The devastating tropical cyclone killed about 230 people across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, and is now considered the deadliest mainland hurricane since Katrina in 2005.
Since September 27, Helene flooded much of western North Carolina and raging mudslides ripped victims and their homes from mountainous communities.
Rescue along with recovery teams, and K9 Units are still searching through the “biblical devastation” caused by Helene.
Among those dead are 11 members of the Craig family, who lived about 12 miles southeast of Asheville in a community dubbed Craigtown, which was slammed by Helene.
Fox News reports that the “11 deceased family members lived in several houses beside each other, which the mudslide crushed when it came down the slope of the mountain near their homes.”
“My mother and father, my aunt and uncle, my great aunt and uncle, I’ve lost cousins, second cousins, things like that, but 11 people overall from this mudslide,” Jesse Craig tells ABC of his family, described as “pillars of the community” in a GoFundMe campaign created to support the surviving members.
“It’s unrecognizable now, but this is where I was born and raised,” Jesse says of the land his grandfather bought 80 years ago. Since, generations of Craigs were born and raised in the family community, memories that were erased by Helene. “We’ll never make sense of it. You know, it’s our community and our town. I don’t know that it’ll ever be the same.”
Jesse’s wife MeKenzie says, “I don’t know that it’ll ever be the same…It’s been that life-altering a situation.
“I haven’t been able to process it yet. It [doesn’t feel] new because it feels like it’s been forever; I don’t even know what day it is,” she adds.
Now, all that stands on the plot of land is an American flag that Jesse attached to a fallen tree branch.
Praising her husband for his courage in dealing with his massive loss since “Hurricane HELL-ene,” MaKenzie writes, “[Jesse] raised this flag as high as he could in the home place he grew up in + one of the few places I have been able to call home for the past 6 years.”
In a separate post, she shares, “I am so proud of you for your strength and bravery in such a tragic time.”
The surviving Craigs refuse to let the storm wash away their legacy and hope to rebuild on the same land.
“We don’t want people to forget months down the road. This is a isn’t just a week or two fix. We have to be in it for the long haul; this is going to take years of work to repair to have it recognizable again,” MeKenzie said.
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