Twin Babies In Georgia Are Youngest-Known Hurricane Helene Victims

Obie Williams said he could hear babies crying and branches battering the windows when he spoke with his daughter on the phone last week as Hurricane Helene tore through her rural Georgia town.

Kobe Williams, 27, and her month-old twin boys were hunkering down at their trailer home in Thomson, Georgia, with her mother, Mary Jones, who had been helping her take care of the one-month-old babies. Williams’ father sensed his daughter was fearing for her safety, and he said she promised him that she would heed his advice to shelter in the bathroom until the storm passed.

The single mother had been sitting in bed holding sons Khyzier and Khazmir and chatting on the phone with various family members while the storm raged outside.

Minutes later, she was no longer answering their calls.

Jones, who was on the other side of the trailer, described hearing a loud crash as a tree fell through the roof of her daughter’s bedroom.

“Kobe, Kobe, answer me, please,” Jones cried out in desperation, but she received no response.

Kobe and the twins were found dead.

“I’d seen pictures when they were born and pictures every day since, but I hadn’t made it out there yet to meet them,” Obie Williams told The Associated Press days after the storm ravaged eastern Georgia. “Now I’ll never get to meet my grandsons. It’s devastating.”

The babies, born Aug. 20, are the youngest known victims of a storm that had claimed at least 225 lives across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and the Carolinas as of midday Saturday. The toll was expected to rise as rescuers reach isolated areas. Among the other young victims are a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy from about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south in Washington County, Georgia.

“She was so excited to be