A pair of month-old twin boys have tragically become the youngest known victims of Hurricane Helene. The infants, along with their mother, lost their lives last week when a tree crashed through the roof of their home in Thomson, Georgia duing the storm.
Obie Williams, the boys’ grandfather, had been on the phone with his daughter, Kobe Williams, as the storm tore through the area. He told CBS News that he could hear the twins, Khyzier and Khazmir, crying in the background as the sounds of branches slammed against the windows.
Kobe, just 27, had been sitting in bed holding her newborn sons, trying to keep calm while talking to various family members. Her mother, Mary Jones, was in another room of the trailer home when she suddenly heard a deafening crash. A large tree had smashed through the roof of Kobe’s bedroom.
“Kobe, Kobe, please answer me,” Jones cried out, but there was no response, according to CBS News.
Emergency responders later found Kobe and her twin boys dead in the wreckage. “I had seen pictures of them since they were born, but I hadn’t been able to get out there to meet them,” Obie Williams said. “Now, I’ll never get to meet my grandsons. It’s devastating.”
The twins, born on August 20, are now the youngest known victims of Hurricane Helene, which has claimed over 229 lives across multiple states, including Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and the Carolinas. Two other young victims of the storm included a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy from Washington County, Georgia.
“She was so proud to be their mom,” Kobe’s niece, Chiquita Jones-Hampton, told CBS News. “She was doing such a great job with those beautiful boys.”
Jones-Hampton, who considered Kobe more like a sister, said the family is in shock and struggling to cope with the loss.
In Augusta, about 30 miles east of where Kobe lived, Obie described the scene after the storm as chaotic. “Power lines were down, tree branches blocked roads and utility poles were snapped in half.” He was trapped in his neighborhood near the South Carolina border for more than a day, CBS News reported.
One of Obie’s sons braved the hazardous conditions to check on Kobe, dodging fallen trees and live power lines. What he found was heartbreaking.
Many of Obie’s other children are still without power across Georgia. Some have taken shelter in Atlanta, while others traveled to Augusta to be with their father and mourn the loss of their sister and her babies.
Obie recalled Kobe as a joyful, outgoing woman who always had a smile on her face. “She loved making people laugh,” he said. It’s hard to believe she’s really gone.”
