With the deaths from Hurricane Helene rising across the state, some of the dead are now being identified.
Since Friday, 89 people have died from the storm and subsequent flooding it brought to the North Carolina mountains. The ages of the victims have ranged from 4 to 89.
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Among those who died were 7-year-old Micah Drye and his grandparents, Nora and Michael Drye. According to family members, the three of them were trapped on the roof of a home in Asheville, but later got swept into flood waters and drowned when the home collapsed.
"I keep thinking about the 50+ deaths," Micah's aunt, Jessica Drye Turner, said on Facebook. "Why did three have to be mine?"
According to Drye Turner, Nora Drye was clinging onto Micah while Michael was holding the two of them. She was providing updates as her family was stranded on top of the home.
"He kept panicking and pushing them under," she said. "She had a hold of a tree and was trying to hold him [when] the water took him."
Drye Turner's sisters have set up a GoFundMe. Those who wish to donate can click here.
'A lot more to come'
Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone, who's assisting with the emergency response in Watauga County, told WRAL News there are still more people waiting for identification, adding there will likely be more in the coming days.
"There is loss of life, and there’s a lot more to come," he said. "We’re still in the early stages of it."
Stone said he and his deputies are performing welfare checks in the county, but the checks sometimes have tragic outcomes.
"We’ll go to these homes, and some of the homes might not be there, or the people have left," he said. "It takes an investigation. It’s very time-consuming and intense on what the office has got to do to locate people."
Stone said the lack of cellphone service in the area has also made it difficult for family members to reach loved ones.
While cellular companies and other local groups are trying to assist with the outages, authorities are facing a new obstacle: Not knowing who the person is. Victims, some of whom may be carried for miles from their homes by flood waters, may have no identification on them when found.
"They’ll go to the coroners, and the coroners would start a forensic investigation on it," Stone said. "It would be an investigation to find out who it is."
Sheriff Stone said if family members don’t know where their loved ones are, don’t wait to ask for a welfare check.
"You don’t have to sit idle and worry about your loved one," he said. "Make calls to the EOC, sheriff’s office or police department in that area so we can go by and do wellbeing checks."