11 Members Of NC Family Found Dead In Helene Destruction

A family in North Carolina is devastated after 11 of their loved ones were killed by a mudslide caused by the flooding from Hurricane Helene.

The Craig family — whose ancestors first settled in Fairview, North Carolina, in the 1950s — was so well-known to locals that they nicknamed their group of neighboring homes “Craigtown,” ABC 11 reported. The family’s life in Fairview changed forever at the end of September when Hurricane Helene brought catastrophic flooding to the southeast U.S.

Several of the Craig family members who lived next to each other were in the direct path of a deadly mudslide caused by the flooding, according to ABC 11. Everyone who was in the homes at the time of the mudslide was killed.

“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,” said Jesse Craig.

Jesse’s grandfather was the first Craig to move to Fairview when he bought land in the 1950s, and since that time, much of the Craig family has lived in Fairview.

“I haven’t been able to process it yet. It’s still — it’s not new because it feels like it’s been forever; I don’t even know what day it is,” Jesse’s wife MeKenzie said.

“We’ll never make sense of it. You know, it’s our community and our town. I don’t — I don’t know that it’ll ever be the same,” MeKenzie added. “It’s been that life-altering a situation.”

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A GoFundMe was started for the surviving members of the Craig family to help pay for funeral costs, medical expenses, clean up, and construction. As of Thursday night, the GoFundMe has raised $127,748.

“We are personal friends of the Craig family and wanted to support them by putting this together to help them with whatever needs they currently have and will have in the coming weeks/months,” the GoFundMe states.

More than 230 people have been found dead across the southeast following Hurricane Helene. In Buncombe County, North Carolina, where Fairview is located, 72 people were killed in the storm, according to Sheriff Quentin Miller. Authorities in North Carolina continue to search for those who have been missing since Helene hit the state, but they cannot confirm exactly how many people are missing.