Tuesday, October 08, 2024 - In a matter of seconds, a North Carolina man's life was turned upside down when heavy flooding from Hurricane Helene claimed the life of his wife, leaving him and their four children behind.
Hurricane Helene killed at least 232 people as the storm tore
through the Southeast of the US, with 72 of the victims coming from Buncombe
County. Hundreds more are still unaccounted for from the deadliest mainland
U.S. hurricane since Katrina in 2005.
On Friday, Sept. 27, Jamie Guinn was inside his
Minneapolis, North Carolina, home with his wife, Melissa, and their 8-year-old
son, River, were at home when chaos broke out. Guinn said their home overlooked
the river, and they had been monitoring it all morning when everything came
tumbling down.
"All of a sudden, I heard something. Sounded like an
explosion. And me and my wife went running through the house and the back door
was shattered," Jamie Guinn told Fox News Digital in a phone interview.
"So I ran to go to the garage to get something to block
the garage off and our garage was gone."
"It sounded like a cannon going off. I just remember
being crushed by the house falling all around me," Guinn continued.
"And I can remember screaming for my little boy, and I could hear him
screaming. And somehow, we dug through the house where it collapsed almost down
into the river and I found him."
Guinn said he was able to rescue his son and looked to see
his wife sitting on top of where their home was, and that was the last time he
saw her alive.
"And my wife was still up on the top where the house
was. And she screamed at me, ‘Babe, watch out!' And so I tried to grab my
little boy and threw him on my back because I figured it was another slide, and
by the time I turned back around to try to make myself alert … she was
gone," Guinn said, choking back tears.
"So I went to scream and was screaming for her, and I
couldn't find my little boy. He turned around, and he just told me, 'Daddy, I
think mommy's gone,'" Guinn described. "So we kept screaming and
hollering for her and no one ever could find her. And at that time, I can't
even remember if there was any part of the house left or if it was gone. It was
all a blur."
Guinn and his son were able to seek shelter at a nearby
neighbour's home. Guinn said he suffered a fractured spine and a laceration to
his head that got infected but that no pain was worse to endure than losing
Melissa.
"She was my absolute best friend. I really don't know
how I'm going to make it without her. We spent every day together. Everything
I've done, she was involved in the same way as every other," Guinn said
"Just going from having that person in your life every
day to literally gone in the blink of an eye, it just shows how often you might
take for granted being with someone."
Guinn said he and Melissa had been together for 17 years and
were just weeks away from celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. He said
he proposed around Halloween, and they had always exchanged small gifts each
year.
"We always say I love you during the day, which we've
done constantly, honestly. And every time I would always write back, ‘Love you
more,’ so this year, I got her a little plaque, and it just gives a whole lot
of reasons of what that really means," Guinn said. "She was the
absolute greatest mother and wife we could have all even asked for."
Guinn said he is still in disbelief his community was struck
so hard by Helene, something no one ever saw coming.
"How much the river water rose was just
unfathomable. It's hard to put into words what that was like. It's stuff that's
not supposed to happen here. It doesn't happen here," Guinn said. "We
don't know where, I don't even know where we begin to start picking up pieces
from after this."
"As much as I hate to say it, I think our
community is stronger than I've ever seen it. Everybody's always been here for
each other, but this level of it, it's absolutely blown my mind how much
everyone has stepped in to help us and everybody else around them is just … the
outpouring is just, I don't even know how to explain it," Guinn said.
Go and Subscribe to our YouTube
Channel and get the best videos around the country, go HERE>>>
0 Comments