Eleven members of the same North Carolina family died in a mudslide caused by Hurricane Helene, their heartbroken relatives have revealed.
The Craig family lived in three houses that sat beside each other in Fairview, a suburb of Asheville in the western part of the state.
The area they lived in was dubbed “Craigtown” by locals — and neighbors described the Craigs as pillars of the small Appalachian community.
“My mother and father, my aunt and uncle, my great-aunt and uncle – I’ve lost cousins, second cousins,” Jesse Craig told local ABC 11. “But 11 people overall from this mudslide.”
The three homes, representing eight decades of family history, were wiped away when a mudslide, caused by the trillions of gallons of water that Helene had dumped on the region, barreled down the mountain.
North Carolina’s picturesque mountainside suffered “absolutely overwhelming” devastation from mudslides. Trees, homes, businesses and everything in between were turned to dirt, rocks, and destruction in the blink of an eye.
“They saw it, witnessed it, had to watch it all,” Bryan Craig, a surviving member of the tragic family, told local outlet WLOS. “And just the sheer, the water through the trees, the rocks, the mud, its incredible.”
Bryan said his family had just celebrated a family wedding the week before.
“We’re going to have some really great pictures from that wedding and pictures of people who are no longer with us,” he lamented.
Family and neighbors have set up a GoFundMe for funeral costs and to help rebuild their property. The fundraiser had raised over $184,000 as of early Saturday.
“This will never be the same,” Bryan said, “There’s no way this can ever be the same, this little area. But we try to move on, to get on with life; I know they’d want us to.”
The Craigs are just some of the more than 230 people that were killed in Hurricane Helene across Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
More than two weeks after the storm, officials and volunteers are still going through the wreckage in search of bodies with many people still unaccounted for or missing. Initial estimates from the White House said the death toll could end up as high as 600.
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