One family lost 11 people when Hurricane Helene devastated the community named for them.
All 11 family members living in what is known to locals in Fairview, North Carolina, as Craigtown are part of the more than 200 people killed by Helene.
We’ll never make sense of it.
“It’s unrecognizable now, but this is where I was born and raised,” Jesse Craig said to ABC11 as he walked Diane Wilson through the destruction of his hometown.
Jesse and his wife MeKenzie are still grappling with the life-altering nature of this storm.
“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 said. “It’s been that life-altering a situation.”
Craigtown is a remote part of western North Carolina that’s now even harder to get to due to Helene.
A mudslide caused by Helene left a path of destruction through Craigtown, erasing several homes and killing everyone who was inside them.
“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 said.