Florence victims: They were mothers and sons, spouses and grandparents
Fifty-nine dead, and counting.
That's the official statistic from Hurricane Florence. But it doesn't capture the full story of the storm's human toll.
For close to a week last September,
Highways became death traps with flash floods and washed-out pavement. One person was killed while delivering bottled water to the flood-stricken communities. Many other people were fatally injured on the road while trying to escape the hurricane's path.
Even those who took cover in their own homes were imperiled. Some died in their sleep. Another died while checking on his hunting dogs at the height of the storm. And many died alone.
In the case of one man who was killed on a highway while evacuating, officials say he's been cremated but they cannot find his family or anyone to claim his remains.
To learn more about the people who lost their lives in
For many, their stories had not been told until now.
A brewing storm
Even before
The morning of
A few hours later,
As
The state's medical examiner found Kobe, who weighed 21 pounds when he died, had previously been a healthy baby. An autopsy report concluded the infant likely suffocated in his sleep. His parents told investigators they typically would lay Kobe to sleep on his own but decided to make a temporary bed on the floor so they could all sleep near one another during the storm.
Kobe had woken up to eat at around
Police and EMS in
Just two hours after the eye of
According to a
As Outlaw connected the cords, he was electrocuted. Paramedics noted electrical burns on his left hand and chest.
He went to check on his dogs and never came back
During any bad storm,
Sutton had gone out around midnight to check on his dogs. He climbed in his truck and directed the headlights toward the dog cage.
The truck was still running, the lights still on, in the morning when Sutton's wife awoke. She couldn't find him in the house or in the truck. One of his daughters found him behind a shed, unresponsive, according to a report from the
The official cause of death, according to an autopsy, was chronic illness exacerbated by hurricane force winds.
In an interview with the
Mother, baby die from downed tree
In
The day she died, at 41, Murphy-Johnson was with her baby boy,
At the time, Murphy-Johnson and her baby son were sleeping in her bedroom. A large tree fell and landed on top of the mother's torso, pinning her to the bed, according to the medical examiner's report.
The tree broke several of her ribs and left bruises and abrasions throughout her body. When first responders reached the mother and son, both were already dead.
They found Murphy-Johnson "essentially on top" of baby Adam, according to the medical examiner's report. It was as if the mother was trying to shield and protect her baby.
House fire in power outage kills 2
For more than 60 years, Pat and
"They did everything together," said their son Chip, who lives in
The Flanagans died together on
After
Hours later, a fire broke out at Pat and
Investigators said burning candles caused the fire. The couple died of smoke inhalation before the fire could be extinguished.
Cafe manager killed in Upstate
In
The
It was around
Police say a man was near the road, trying to alert on-coming traffic with a flashlight when he saw Lee approaching. But she never stopped.
She was killed after colliding with the fallen tree, which caused the front end of her truck to jump six feet in the air and slam back down before careening off the right side of the road.
In the middle of the night,
The retired
But while packing to evacuate, the 81-year-old fell and fatally struck his head, according to information from the N.C. Medical Examiner's Office. When his friend arrived, he found Trybek dead on his bedroom floor.
More than 200 miles away that same morning, in upstate
A mom wonders, 'What if?'
His teenage and early adult years were hard, she says, and Stramaglia struggled to adjust after his parents divorced and he moved with his mom to
Then, she got a phone call from the
The trooper, Barlowe remembers, said "there was a wreck." Early that morning, Stramaglia's yellow Nissan Xterra had slid off a wet road and overturned in
First responders found the mangled SUV wrapped around a power pole on
Stramaglia was killed almost instantly, according to an autopsy report. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt. A friend who was with him and who was driving Stramaglia's car survived.
Later, he told Stramaglia's mother the two of them were headed to work that morning on a landscaping job. Barlowe says it had been her son's hope in recent months to start his own lawn care company.
"He would work sometimes 12 or 13 hours a day," she said.
Now, she and other family members have a lot of "what if's." She wonders why her son was headed to work in bad weather.
The day before, Stramaglia had written on his Facebook page: "Just wanted to say I hope everyone is and stays safe and inside during the storm regardless of how big or small it is."
Father of 6 suffers heart failure after storm
By
As he stepped through the door, his wife, Giselle, heard "a loud unintelligible holler," according to a medical examiner's report.
An ambulance was nearby but unable to access Medina's house because of flooded roadways. Instead, the local fire department's first responders handled the call. They attempted resuscitation, without success.
Medina, a father of six boys, died from heart disease, according to the medical examiner. He was 56.
Medina's obituary said he and his family moved to
Generator poisoned couple's home
In the days after
Rion, 61, and King, 63, met as teenagers, said their son
The two fell in love and had two children. Later, King said, his parents fell out of love. But after decades apart passed,
"They were great parents, and even better grandparents,"
The couple died on
After losing power at their home during
Rion was well-known in the community as she taught at
'She didn't know the road wasn't there'
After moving from
Brock worked as a home health nurse, and since retiring more than a dozen years ago, she pursed her twin passions: sewing clothes for her six grandchildren, and trying her luck with lottery scratch-offs, said her brother
She was killed
Her car overturned and went under in a part of the road that had been washed out.
"She didn't make it a quarter mile," her brother said. "About 5 to 6 feet of the highway was missing and she didn't know the road wasn't there."
Day Three
There were eight fatal car wrecks total attributed to Hurricane Florence on
'Road closed' sign moved before fatal wreck
On
State authorities had closed the road due to flooding.
A 911 call from the accident scene indicates
"There's two people still trapped. There's one person screaming, they're under water and they're upside down. The other person in the truck hasn't made a noise," said one person on the phone with 911.
Later, a man talking with dispatch said: "We're trying to get the door open to get them out. The door won't open."
It took 17 minutes for Georgetown EMS to reach the overturned truck, public records show. Flooded roadways blocked the route, forcing two different units to turn around and find another way. When the crews arrived, they used heavy-duty equipment to extract
The driver escaped the flooded truck, but
For most of his 80-year long life,
"That's how he made his living when I met him," said his wife,
Moore lost his life while evacuating
It was around
With their 32-year-old son, Joseph, behind the wheel, their car was caught in swift currents and was pinned against nearby trees.
Then a tow truck appeared and offered to pull the Moores' car, with
"It was a tragic mistake," said
He said the tow truck driver panicked and vanished. No charges were filed.
In fact, Moore's autopsy would later show, he was wearing his favorite black cowboy boots in the car on the morning he died.
Mother: Why no warning signs?
The 4-year-old girl asks about her mommy
"She likes looking at pictures of her and she loves looking at videos of her. She misses her, but she doesn't understand the death part of it," said
Hartley, 30, of
That stretch of pavement in
Authorities told Singleton when her daughter hit standing water in the road, it caused her to lose control of the vehicle. The car flipped and hit a tree.
"They came to my house and told me she had an accident and that she didn't make it," Singleton recalls. "I'll never forget those four words."
Singleton said she wished warning signs about the road conditions would have been up for Hartley to see.
"I don't understand why there wasn't any flashing lights or signs, or do not cross through here, or anybody here directing traffic," Singleton said.
Despite that stretch of road having planned improvements, there wouldn't have been any caution signs there, a state transportation official said.
He died in '
Youngren crashed on
The 42-year-old Youngren died after his truck hydroplaned and went off the left side of the interstate, hitting an overpass support beam, according to law enforcement records and
West said Youngren died in a stretch of road that West calls "
State transportation officials said Youngren's death occurred near a stretch of road undergoing resurfacing at the time.
The area would have had signs for drivers indicating "end road work," but the coroner said he could not see those signs based on a review of photos from the place where Youngren crashed.
Trucker dies delivering hurricane relief
Orville Clyde "Chip" King III made his living touring the country from behind the wheel of a tractor trailer truck. He loved to travel, his family said in his obituary. And when he wasn't working, King liked to fish, hunt and read.
On the day he died, 56-year-old King was hauling bottled water and storm recovery supplies to communities in the Carolinas affected by
In his truck on the morning of
The wreck happened just south of
The water all around the Ford Focus was rising, and 65-year-old
First responders from a local fire department were able to save Dudley's mother and another relative from the flooding car on
It would be two days before a recovery team could reach the submerged car and Dudley's body. A death investigator later noted in an autopsy report he found clothes inside the flooded car, "as if (Dudley) was attempting to leave his house to get out of hurricane."
Dudley, a private first class during the Vietnam War, is buried at the
She lost her baby. Now every storm brings anxiety
The last time
The mother and son had arrived in separate ambulances at
By the afternoon, the ground was soggy and soft and a strong gust of wind pushed over the tree, sending it crashing through their roof.
Gill, 41, had just sat down on the couch with Kade to feed him a bottle when the tree broke through the ceiling above her. Gill remembers the sound of the crash and holding her baby in her arms.
Her body absorbed the largest blow from the tree. As the pine fell, it scraped Gill's back and pinned her against the couch.
Kade cried and
At first, the Gills thought Kade would be okay. There was little physical sign of injury on his 12-pound body. But, at the hospital, doctors discovered a large object -- most likely, a part of the ceiling -- had landed on a soft spot of the baby's head, causing traumatic brain injury.
Kade was placed on a ventilator, but he died about two hours later, in the afternoon on
"You think of 100 things that you mighta, coulda, shoulda done,"
"I wonder what he would look like now. I wonder what he would be doing. I know he's better where he is, in Heaven. But the human part of me would just rather have him here."
Before the storm, the couple talked about leaving and
Even though she did all she could, Tammy says, she still carries guilt.
When heavy rains move through or forecasters call for a bad storm, she experiences anxiety.
"I'm on edge all day, looking out the windows at trees."
She prays regularly and sometimes asks God "why."
In the days and weeks after
"People you would see in the beginning -- that kinda fades away,"
"Eventually, everything just goes back to normal... . But, we have a new normal now."
Driver drowns in flash flood
Massive rainfall in eastern
He died on
Huntley had been going to check on his mother in
A water rescue team out of
Baby drowned in
In the rainy evening,
Floodwaters rose close to 10 foot high, making the stretch of road the mother and son traveled on impassable.
Local police tried to close the road, placing orange barriers 2 miles up from the creek. When Lee arrived, though, the barriers weren't blocking traffic, she told reporters later.
Twenty-year-old Lee said she slowed down and pulled over when she saw the barriers sitting near the road. She considered turning around. But, then she saw cars coming from the opposite direction, giving her confidence the road was safe.
Later, Lee would explain to The
Outside the car, Lee held Kaiden, but they began to sink and the power of the moving water carried her son away from her. She couldn't reach him as she could not swim herself.
The next morning, authorities found little Kaiden's body. He had drowned.
More than a month later, Lee was charged with involuntary manslaughter, a felony, but the charge did not go before a grand jury and she was not indicted. Instead, Lee plead guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge and the
The lesser charge carried no fine and no jail time but Lee's driver's license was temporarily revoked.
Her attorney
Before his death, the 55-year-old wrote on Facebook that he had weathered many storms.
At first, Hurricane Florence seemed no different.
Wawrzyniak, a carpenter, told friends know he was staying on the coast, in a camp trailer, with his roommate. As
"Let's hope we make it through this."
Four days later,
He was last seen by his roommate the night before his death, and it's believed he spoke to his wife, via phone, that same night, according to a report from the N.C. Medical Examiner's Office.
Without power, man needing oxygen machine dies
Harvell used his oxygen concentrator for breathing as he endured ongoing respiratory issues, according to the state medical examiner's office. But the machine required electricity. Harvell died at home on
One person wrote: "When the pagers tone for a call, Lawrence was there to help those in need. He had a heart to serve others. When our journey on earth ends; it is what we done to help others that measure our quality of life."
Man, granddaughter die of CO poisoning
A electrical blackout affecting much of
On
Warehouse crushed, manager killed in tornado
A tornado touched down, bringing winds of nearly 120 miles per hour. The storm flipped cars and damaged businesses and homes as it cut through the town of
Tornado alarms sounded all afternoon,
"The metal roof started peeling back like paper," said
Jones helped usher other employees into the office that adjoined the company's warehouse and struggled to close the office door against powerful winds, she later told police. Then, employees in the office realized Bishop was not among them.
He was found lying a few feet outside a door to the office, next to a forklift. His body was covered in debris and metal ceiling supports.
Later, the medical examiner would describe the cause of Bishop's death as blunt force trauma to his head and extremities. State officials found the company had not violated safety standards during a follow-up inspection.
"He was a grumpy old redneck that really loved his family and friends,"
Her husband was passionate about carpentry. The son of a carpenter, he learned the craft early,
His only child had drowned at an early age,
"He's been grieving his son all these years," she said. "So now his heart's full again."
Head-on crash after car hydroplanes
The latter part of
A head-on collision with another car killed 49-year-old
Hicks died from his injuries at a hospital, police said. The driver of the other car was treated for minor injuries.
"He always took time," she said. "He was sweet and kind."
Inland flood killed 88-year-old
When
His grandson later told investigators Wright left his home around noon the day before. The storm had knocked out power at the house they shared. His grandfather was restless and left to get coffee,
The next morning,
Wright was floating next to the car and he is believed to have drowned, a report from the state medical examiner's office states.
When a tow truck pulled Wright's car from the water, investigators saw the driver's side window was down -- leading police to believe the 88-year-old man may have tried to escape as his vehicle was inundated over by water.
Wright was killed almost 200 miles away from where
Night wreck, flood kill
Not far from his home, 66-year-old
His body was found
Cummings was going to check on friends in
Man drowned with dogs in car
Zaloski was a longtime biochemical engineer for
He was a drummer throughout his life, she said, and did several world tours with different bands. In retirement, he continued to play drums and give private drumming lessons. He also enjoyed painting, woodworking, cooking, playing golf and fly fishing, his wife said.
"He was a quiet man, but had a dry sense of humor, and loved to tell stories of his childhood,"
A rescue team was unable to reach Zaloski's vehicle until the next day,
His sister urged him to stay a little longer, but
"I don't know if he got cabin fever or was just ready to go," said Carter's son, Denver.
"My dad was a daredevil,"
The older Carter climbed into his 2011 Chevrolet Silverado and started his trip home to
When he turned onto
He was trapped inside his truck as the vehicle fell into a washed-out part of the road, becoming fully submerged. Carter drowned, according to the coroner.
"When the authorities put out the announcement not to drive, there's a reason for that and unfortunately my dad is the poster child for that reason,"
Man, 37, dies on flooded road
A father, son and brother,
Player's car crashed near the intersection of
At the time of his death, the Hubert resident had a tattoo of his son's name, Jayden. In Player's obituary, his family directed memorial donations to a fund for Jayden.
Neighbor finds man in flood
The wreck happened on
A report from the medical examiner and information from police shows Tillman's car went into a nearly 6-foot-deep culvert that had been created by a pavement washout. The vehicle then hit a drainage pipe at nearly 55 miles per hour. Tillman was 83.
'High priority' road project unfinished before flood
Early in the morning, 52-year-old
On a clear, sunny day,
Rushing water pushed their vehicle off the road and into a flooded field. The father and son got out of their car and tried to get back to safety but the strength of the water swept them away, first responders said.
An hour later, paramedics found
Public records show Adams died about 1,000 feet away from a pond site previously known to produce life-threatening flooding during major storms.
The location was marked in a county government report as a "high priority" for mitigation after flooding from Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Then, a post-hurricane resilience plan submitted to the state
But, two years later, when
After
Diggs says the county is concerned about public safety in the area but the proposed project would be expensive and require relocating drains for three stormwater retention ponds further away from
Even if the project had been done, though, Diggs says he doesn't think it would have made a difference to save Adams' life because his death was more likely caused by flooding from the nearby creek, not the ponds.
A sheriff's deputy's decision to drive through floodwaters in Lowcountry South Carolina led to
Green, 43, and Newton, 45, were on their way to hospitals for mental health treatment on
State investigators allege the two deputies,
Their van was swept off
An investigative report by
"The executive director of the
Mother killed driving son to school
The worst of the storm seemed to have passed the
The day before, local schools had opened two hours later than usual as the last bit of rain and heavy winds vacated the area. But even with the forecast clear for
Prayther, 46, and her son were on
The tree fell across the car's passenger compartment, and the vehicle left the road, hitting a mailbox and then a house, according to troopers.
Couple dies in home's hot, stale air
Married couple
The home had no fans and all windows were closed, preventing air movement inside, according to a police report. The temperature inside the home was hot.
When Connors entered the home, he found
According to the police report, paramedics performed CPR before transporting
Last call to loved one: 'I'm sinking'
It was raining harder than
Before his midnight shift as a security supervisor in
But soon, a ringing phone jolted her awake. On the line, Kelih was screaming.
"I'm sinking! I'm sinking! I'm in a sinkhole," she remembers him saying.
Then the line went dead.
Goldman called the police. She thought she knew where Kelih was, based on the time of the call and the route he typically took home.
She drove toward the site, but a barricade was blocking traffic on
Not long after Goldman's 911 call, the
At the time, at least two feet of water was rushing over the road. Later, police would find Kelih's Toyota Tacoma overturned and partially submerged. Kelih died early in the morning
Had Kelih known the road was flooded or was closed, he wouldn't have tried to drive through, Goldman and his mother, Nancy, both say. After he died, the Central Virginian newspaper reported the stretch of road where he drowned passes over Foster's Creek and has no guard rails.
That's something Goldman and
"We want to prevent this from happening to anybody else," Goldman said.
Hurricane stress contributed to retiree's death
A bad fall suffered during storm clean-up combined with post-hurricane stress killed 67-year-old
Gallagher lived in
An autopsy determined Gallagher had heart problems and the stress of
But Gallagher refused to go to the hospital, the autopsy report states.
Later, police and medical investigators would learn Gallagher had suffered a broken neck during the fall and had an irregular heart beat and a blood clot in his heart.
The medical examiner on the case wrote in his final report: "It's no doubt the stress was severe from the hurricane (and) fall ... This stress may have contributed to his death. Therefore, this is considered an accidental death and related to Hurricane Florence."
A week later
In the days immediately after
Two people died while still evacuated from their homes and two others drowned in lingering floodwaters across the state.
In
The 68-year-old, who went by Doug, collapsed in his house in
She called 911 and paramedics attempted to revive Stanley for nearly an hour. The cause of death, according to an autopsy, was heart disease.
'He was already gone'
As he cleared fallen trees and storm debris from his yard in
When he graduated from
When he was home, Johnson mostly worked in his yard or went to car shows, his mother said.
"He was a quiet person," she said. "He didn't like to go to clubs or party."
After Hurricane Florence, Johnson bought a couple of power saws and was using them to clear downed trees and limbs from his yard.
When
"When I got there, he was already gone," she said. "They got him straightened out so we could look at him and touch him before they took him away for an autopsy."
In Floyd, he saved people. In
Living in
After Hurricane Floyd flooded the
During
He climbed a ladder on
"He was trying to fix his building," Brown said. "He had a little shop. He liked fast cars. He liked anything fast."
A welder by trade, Bonham was between jobs when the storm hit. He was 47.
Andrews Mortuary in
'There ain't nobody in there'
Before he died,
"I sent him a little message," Sealy recalls. "After awhile he wanted to come see me."
"He had to pay somebody to bring him down here because he couldn't drive," she said. In addition to heart disease, Crohn's and COPD, Martin was also legally blind. But, Sealy says, his mind was sharp.
"I told him, 'You can remember anything -- and I forget everything. You can share your memory with me and I'll share my eyesight with you.'"
They had about five years together after Martin moved to Sealy's small mobile home on the
He and Sealy had evacuated
"The hurricane was coming, and he was frightened -- I mean really frightened," Sealy remembers. "So he packed up the car, and we went."
Martin was attempting to get out of his hotel bed when he fell and hit his head on a table in the room, according to emergency medical officials in
"He was a good man," Sealy said. "I miss him terribly."
Sometimes, Sealy says, she stands in her kitchen and instinctively turns to the living room, where Martin used to sit in his chair and watch old Western movies: "Then, I think, 'There ain't nobody in there... . I'm sitting here now, alone, like I was when I met him."
In
During the trip to
Police officers say he crashed
Brooks died the next day in a hospital from injuries sustained in the crash.
About nine years ago,
"He would turn his leg upside down and use the bottom of his shoe to set his drink on, and all the kids would just be freaking out,"
His brother evacuated ahead of Hurricane Florence, though, when a woman who lived next door to him -- she happened to be a police officer -- urged him to leave for his safety,
"His home got hit pretty hard," Paul said. "But this is one of those weird situations where if he hadn't have gone to the shelter, he'd still be alive."
Woman killed on washed out road
More than a week after
Holt, of
According to her obituary by
Roughly 24 hours later, on
Among the items in Wiley's pockets were a "Gucci Classics" CD and an information sheet on
The area where Wiley's body was found, along
Wiley, 32, had a seizure disorder and didn't always take his medication. The medical examiner concluded it was likely he had a seizure and fell into the water. His death was ruled an accidental drowning.
Cleanup injury causes fatal infection
The obituary for
Member of the 1951 state championship basketball team at
Phelps, 85, died on
State officials attribute his death to a fatal infection, caused by a injury to his leg after he was scraped by a tree branch.
He'd been rushed to a nearby hospital after collapsing. Doctors determined he suffered from septic shock, life-threateningly low blood pressure brought on by infection.
At the hospital, Phelps' leg was amputated but he later died from what a biopsy showed was vibrio series bacteremia.
In his obituary, loved ones wrote of the "unforgettable love story" Ronald and
Phelps also ran a popular "Hometown Memories" Facebook page about
For more than a week,
Later, the state medical examiner's office would determine Rhodes suffered respiratory complications related to multiple sclerosis. She died
She was 44 years old. After her death, Rhodes' family started a memorial fund to help support her young son's education.
Missing for 1 month
Britt had been last seen near
She had drowned in the
The medical examiner's office ruled Britt's death an accidental drowning. She was 53.
A 69-year-old man who died by suicide on
Investigators in
4 months later
The death of 44-year-old
Her son had been home for Christmas just before he was found dead in his bed on
But the night before he died, he became sick. Later, medical investigators would conclude he was possibly exposed to too much bleach or another cleaning agent while trying to eradicate mold in his home. The mold was caused by rain and flooding during
She still doesn't understand how it could have happened to her son.
"He was just so alive before, just a few weeks before," Peg said.
She sometimes wonders if his death could have been prevented.
"I'm not a doctor, but I've read (the autopsy report) over many times... . I wish things were different."
Biron's mother says her son first moved to
Although he loved living in the South, Peg said, her son remained a lifelong fan of the
BEHIND OUR REPORTING
How we did this story
The Storm's Path includes an in-depth look at the people who died at the hands of Hurricane Florence. To tell these stories, reporters collected official government records (like police reports and autopsies), interviewed family and friends of victims , spoke with first responders and coroners, and reviewed news articles, obituaries and social media accounts.
To analyze emergency preparedness in
Stories were written by
___
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