As many families begin the emotionally taxing process of rebuilding their lives after Hurricane Helene’s devastating impact, one North Carolina family is grieving the overwhelming loss of 11 of its family members.
The Craig Family built eight decades of memories in an area lovingly referred to by locals as “Craigtown” in Fairview, North Carolina, CNN affiliate WTVD reported – a state whose death toll has surpassed 100 after Hurricane Helenerazed over 500 miles from Florida to the Southern Appalachians in just 48 hours.
A mudslide caused by Helene ripped through Craigtown, erasing several homes and killing those inside them, according to WTVD. Some of the family members were forced to watch helplessly as water and mud ravaged the homes, CNN affiliate WLOS reported.
It’s hard enough losing anyone you love, but to grieve the lives of 11 all at once has left surviving family members, Jesse and Bryan Craig unable to recognize their hometown as they process their grief.
Jesse Craig tallied up the loved ones he’s lost.
“My mother and father, my aunt and uncle, my great aunt and uncle – I’ve lost cousins, second cousins,” Jesse told WTVD.
About the mudslide, Bryan Craig told WLOS, “They saw it, witnessed it, and had to watch it all, and just the sheer, the water through the trees, the rocks, the mud, it’s incredible.”
Just a week before tragedy struck, the family had celebrated a wedding together, Bryan told the station. Now, as loved ones rummage through the rubble of what’s left of their families’ homes, they’re left with their memories, aided only by the photos and objects that survived the mudslide.
“We’re going to have some really great pictures from that wedding and pictures of people who are no longer with us,” Bryan said.
Friend Steve Runion, described the Craigs as a “larger than life” family who were “pillars of the community” he told CNN affiliate WRAL.
“They would do anything for you,” he said. “They really do have servants’ hearts. That’s the best way I could put it… They were just loving people.”
For the family members who still remain in the area, they’re focused on rebuilding what their relatives worked so hard to build since the mid-1900s, WTVD reported.
“They recovered a couple of wood stoves out of a couple the homes,” Runion told WRAL. “They’re talking about making a memorial out of those wood stoves, which would be really neat.”
Family friends have organized a GoFundMe for rebuilding efforts, funeral arrangements, medical expenses and unemployment during the grieving process, it states.
“This will never be the same; 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,” Bryan said.
