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One-month-old twin babies who died alongside their mother are the youngest victims of Hurricane Helene, which has now claimed more than 200 lives.
Kobe Williams, 27, called her father Obie Lee while she and her newborns were hunkering down alone at their trailer home in Thomson, Georgia as the storm ripped through the southeast on Monday.
Before hanging up to check on his other kids, Obie Lee urged her to shelter in the bathroom with her babies, Khazmir and Khyzier, until the storm passed. After that, Kobe’s family were unable to reach her.
One of her brothers dodged fallen trees and downed power lines to check on her later that day, and he could barely bear to tell his father what he saw.
A large tree had fallen through the roof, crushing Kobe and causing her to fall on top of infant sons Khyzier and Khazmir. All three were found dead.
“I'd seen pictures when they were born and pictures every day since, but I hadn't made it out there yet to meet them,” Obie Lee told The Associated Press days after the storm ravaged eastern Georgia. “Now I'll never get to meet my grandsons. It's devastating.”
The babies, born on August 20, were victims of a storm that had claimed at least 215 lives as of Friday.
Among the other young victims are a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy from about 50 miles south in Washington County, Georgia.
In Obie Lee’s home city of Augusta, 30 miles east of his daughter's home in Thomson, power lines stretched along the sidewalks, tree branches blocked the roads and utility poles lay cracked and broken. The debris left him trapped in his neighborhood near the South Carolina border for a little over a day after the storm barreled through.
Kobe, a single mother nursing newborns, had told her family she couldn’t evacuate with such young babies, her father said.
Many of Obie Lee’s 14 other children are still without power in their homes across Georgia. Some have sought refuge in Atlanta, and others have traveled to Augusta to see their father and mourn together. They are waiting for the bodies to be released by the county coroner and for roads to be cleared before arranging a funeral.
Williams described his daughter as a lovable, social and strong young woman who cared deeply about her large family. She always had a smile on her face and loved to make people laugh, he said.
She was studying to be a nursing assistant but had taken time off from school to give birth to her sons.
“That was my baby,” her father said. “And everybody loved her.”
Hurricane Helene caused massive destruction and devastation across the Southeast United States. It’s quickly become the deadliest hurricane to hit since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
At least half of the victims are in North Carolina, where towns like Asheville saw unprecedented flooding. First responders are still working to find an undetermined number of unaccounted-for people.
Meanwhile, the storm’s impact has led leaders like President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to tour impacted areas and speak with those who have lost family members or their possessions.
So far, the Biden–Harris administration has provided more than $20 million in federal funding to help with search and rescue, cleanup and recovery.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
