Six months after Helene, families ache for any trace of loved ones lost in NC floods
As soon as she could, Kelly White started looking for her cousin, Alena Ayers, who disappeared during Helene’s floods six months ago.
She began in the tiny community of Relief, where Ayers lived for six years in a home within earshot of the North Toe River.
White documents her efforts, storing photos of debris piles, maps, and a journal of some 20 trips across Western North Carolina and along the Tennessee border in a Google Drive.
Many people have asked White why. The answer is simple.
“I loved her. To be honest, we didn’t always get along until we got older. But we loved each other as family,” she said.
White also feels responsibility to help Ayers’ daughter, Bridgett, who was staying with other family members the night of the storm, which kept her out of harm’s way.
In 2008, when she was a kid, White’s aunt, Karen Lynne White, was found dead under a bridge in Buncombe County, she said. As she watched her father search for answers that never came, she felt helpless.
When Ayers disappeared, that same helplessness returned — but this time, White could do something, she said
The best anyone knows, Ayers, her husband, Stephen, and their Mitchell County neighbors tried but failed to escape the rising North Toe and were swept away.
The bodies of neighbors Knox Petrucci and his fiance’s two children were found downstream in Mitchell County. The remains of Alison Wisley, the children’s mother, and Stephen Ayers washed across the border into Tennessee, where they were recovered.
White has seen Ayers’ blue Chevy Cobalt by the wall of Relief’s one-time post office, not far from her flooded home. But so far, no trace of her.
Still unaccounted for
Across Western NC, six people remain missing in three counties, local authorities told The News & Observer. Also among them:
- Lenny Widawski, a musician from Yancey County, who an article in The Assembly described as an “outgoing man often seen wearing a brightly patterned shirt and jaunty hat.”
- Yevhenii Segen, and his grandmother, Tatiana Novitnia, also from Yancey County. They had fled Ukraine with Yevhenii’s parents, who also died in the storm.
- Russell Wilber was camping in Newland with his wife, Charlene, when they were swept into the Toe River. Charlene’s body was found. Wilber is still missing.
- Kimberly Joan Ashby disappeared into the Elk River. She was at a vacation home with her husband — who survived — when the home was carried off by the flood.
For some of their family members, it feels like the search for their loved ones has been all but abandoned.
“I feel like he was just stolen from me,” Ranee LaPointe, Wilber’s daughter, said.
“I’m angry at how everything happened and I’m angry at how everything played out. And I’m angry that finding these people is not a priority.”
Not thousands missing
North Carolina’s official death count from the storm is 106 deaths, which does not include North Carolina residents, such as Stephen Ayers, whose bodies were found in Tennessee.
In the initial days and weeks after Hurricane Helene, some believed many more people were missing. That fueled misinformation on social media, with some speculating that the missing persons list numbered in the thousands and that the true scale of the disaster was being concealed.
The reality is far different: At the height of the storm’s aftermath, the NC 211 help line — managed by the United Way of North Carolina — received 4,848 missing-people reports, said Brian Haines, spokesperson for the state’s Division of Emergency Management. That figure represents reports, not individuals, but it helped officials compile missing persons lists, he said.
As welfare checks were completed, communication lines restored and search efforts progressed, the number steadily dropped.
By November, once the list had narrowed to 10 people, local law enforcement took over those investigations, with the state assisting when requested, Haines said.
‘Finally good’ — then gone
For LaPointe, losing her father to Helene’s floodwaters stings doubly because her bond with him had just started to heal after years apart, following the divorce of her parents when she was a kid.
“He was supporting me in my journey as a midwife. Things were finally good for the first time in a long time,” she said.
When the storm hit, her father and his wife, Charlene, who lived in Tennessee, were camping by the North Toe River in Newland at the Buckhill Campground
LaPointe initially wasn’t worried — until days following the storm passed without any contact with them. Then, search teams started scouring debris and rivers with dogs and helicopters. Among them, volunteers from Geaux Rescue stood out, LaPointe said, taking a lead role in the effort.
But by Oct. 11, hope dimmed. Geaux Rescue, a voluntary civilian search and rescue group, announced in a news release that, after exhaustive searches alongside federal teams — covering over 2,300 miles and tackling 20-foot debris piles — the search was suspended.
Silence followed until late October, when Charlene’s body surfaced downriver, approximately 7 miles south of the campground, according to news reports.
Since then, LaPointe has heard nothing from officials, leaving her unsure where to turn next, she said.
Avery County Sheriff Mike Henley told The N&O that people have looked for any trace of Wilber or Ashby, also missing from his county. He did not know of a location “or area that has not been searched multiple times utilizing multiple resources” in the search, he wrote in an email.
“We will continue to follow any and all leads as it pertains to these missing persons in our effort to recover them,” he wrote.
Amid the frustration, LaPointe clings to memories, including from childhood: watching her father play softball, visiting a lake, and laughing when he got stung by a hornpout he taught her to catch.
He taught her carpentry and how to ballroom dance too. As she got older, he showed her how to drive a standard because, as he said, “a woman should always know how to drive every vehicle so that a man can’t ever prevent her from driving.” she said.
Before he went missing, LaPointe cherished seeing him with her children — taking them to the store, swimming in his pool. “He seemed very happy” and “proud of his family.”
Wilber’s pride extended to his business, C & R Painting and Remodeling, based in Telford, Tennessee, launched with Charlene.
Their cookouts were legendary — Charlene the “ultimate hostess,” Wilber the “ultimate grill guy,” she said.
He adored his golden doodles, Maggie and Molly, who were with him at the campground during the storm.
Molly survived, found days after the storm and miles away from the destroyed camper.
White’s mournful search
Similarly, the official search for Ayers has faded. But her cousin is not done.
While White and her cousin didn’t see each other in person often, they kept in touch online, sharing updates about their kids. Both genealogy enthusiasts, they bonded over tracing their ancestry. White also supported Ayers’ small, online jewelry business, buying pieces from her sales page.
White started searching in early November when she returned to her home in Henderson County after spending three weeks with family in Thomasville after the storm, which left her home without power.
“There was a lot of response in the beginning,” White said, referring to early search efforts in Mitchell County involving the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the National Guard, local teams and the sheriff’s department.
But as time passed, efforts stalled, with local authorities in Mitchell County leaving much of the search to self-deployed volunteers — some experienced, others not, White said.
In late February, Mitchell County had “no ongoing search other than leads from the community,” but detectives and volunteers had gone above and beyond the usual search efforts, said county spokesperson Kelly Jones.
“We are confident she is no longer in our jurisdiction — our river flows right into Tennessee,” Jones said.
White said she’s found Tennessee officials, particularly in Unicoi County, to be more active. She worked with Unicoi County Emergency Management Director Jimmy Erwin in January and February to map out debris piles and other locations where Ayers’ remains might be and to search them in the town of Erwin, where Stephen was found. These maps will help debris removal teams proceed with caution.
White was frustrated by how long it took Mitchell County Sheriff’s Department to file a missing person report for her cousin, saying that slowed efforts to prove that Ayers should be declared deceased. This declaration is important to move forward with things like settling bills and making decisions about her belongings.
Could loss bring helpful change?
In North Carolina, a person can’t be declared dead just because they’ve been missing. But if they were in danger when last seen, that can help a judge or jury decide if they should be considered deceased.
White shared a missing person report from the Mitchell County Sheriff’s Departments that shows that while Ayers was reported missing in early October, the official investigation report wasn’t generated until Jan. 15.
Jones explained the report delay, noting that the NC SBI submitted one, and the sheriff’s department, which lost its office following damage due to Helene, filed one around mid-January, when it regained access to an office.
For White, this doesn’t cut it.
“I know everyone is traumatized,” and “I’m not telling them they have to go out there every single day and look for her, but they’ve got to do something and be active and be the ones coordinating for the family,” she said.
Spurred by her experiences, White posted a petition advocating for “Alena’s Law” on Change.org, a change to state law to allow families of missing victims in natural disasters to petition the courts directly for a presumed-death declaration after 30 to 60 days.
Republican Rep. Dudley Greene, who represents Mitchell County, said he was considering backing such legislation.
For White, the possibility of her idea becoming law and being named after her cousin makes her “ecstatic.”
“I want Alena remembered for her beauty, her sparkle, her humor, and her kindness — not just the tragedy she endured and the hole that is left in our lives from her absence,” she said.
“I want what she would have wanted — to advocate for others and to preserve their memories, and provide some kind of peace for their families as well.”
Correspondent Emily Vespa contributed to this article.
This story was originally published March 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Six months after Helene, families ache for any trace of loved ones lost in NC floods."
