Helene Has Killed More Than 110 People. Here Are Some of Their Stories.
"After the Category 4 hurricane made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast and pummeled the Southeast, some victims’ portraits were coming into focus.
A woman in her 70s who repaired nuclear cooling towers and rode motorcycles. A Florida resident who helped her community recover from Hurricane Ian two years ago. A man who had just moved to South Carolina to work as an electrical lineman.
All three were among the more than 110 people killed by Helene, a roaring Category 4 hurricane that has devastated much of the Southeast since coming ashore last week.
The victims came from at least six states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Many people drowned, and others were killed by falling trees, car crashes under heavy rains and a tornado produced by the storm. A lot of the victims were still unidentified.
The toll is almost certain to rise as rescuers reach communities in the Appalachian Mountains, where devastating flooding and mudslides have decimated whole towns.
But on Sunday, three days after the giant storm made landfall in the Big Bend region, some victims’ stories were coming into focus.
Most of the victims in Florida drowned in Pinellas County, the state’s most densely populated county, which is in the Tampa Bay region.
One of them was Marjorie Havard, 79, of St. Pete Beach. Her son, Todd Webb, 58, who also lives in St. Pete Beach, believes that his mother tripped, fell and drowned in several feet of storm surge.
After raising her children in Ohio, Ms. Havard became a licensed carpenter and traveled the country to repair nuclear cooling towers. She rode motorcycles and loved animals; she had owned a llama, a horse and a mule, in addition to dogs and cats.
“At one time she was pretty darn tough,” Mr. Webb said. “But at 79, the storm took her.”
Mr. Webb said his mother had insisted on staying in her home before the storm, even though she was under an evacuation order. He believes many of her neighbors made the same decision because Helene had been expected to make landfall much farther north. But even so, the record-breaking hurricane — Helene is the strongest to ever hit the Big Bend region — brought dangerous storm surge to the Tampa Bay area.
Aidan Bowles, a 71-year-old retired lawyer who had owned a local sports bar, also chose not to evacuate from his one-story cottage in Indian Rocks Beach in Pinellas County.
One of his neighbors, John Comer, an artist who had also stayed during the storm, checked on Mr. Bowles the day after the hurricane made landfall and came across a harrowing scene: Mr. Bowles had been trapped under a dresser and covered in mud.
“It’s not something you can get out of your mind easily,” Mr. Comer said.
Mr. Bowles had grown up in Ireland and vacationed on Indian Rocks Beach since the 1980s. After living in Kentucky for a while, he and his wife, Sabrina, moved permanently to Indian Rocks Beach about 15 years ago. She died a little over a year ago, but he didn’t want to move out of their home. “He absolutely loved Indian Rocks Beach,” Mr. Comer said.
Mr. Comer also described how friendly Mr. Bowles had been to patrons of his family’s business.
“One of the amazing traits about him was he would always sit down with people and talk to them when they came into his restaurant to eat,” he said.
Another victim in Pinellas County was Rachel Burch, 37, who also drowned. Ms. Burch was no stranger to Florida hurricanes. After Hurricane Ian hit in 2022, she helped people rebuild on Pine Island, where she lived at the time, according to her friend Angee Romero, 50.
“She loved Florida,” Ms. Romero said. “After the hurricane, she was 110 percent helping. She was right there with her extra-tough mullet boots, just like all of us,” referring to waterproof boots typically worn by fishermen.
Ms. Burch was an outgoing and friendly person, Ms. Romero said. When the two worked together at the American Legion Auxiliary unit in St. James City, Fla., they distributed meals and supplies after Ian tore through their community.
A few months after Ian, Ms. Burch left Pine Island and eventually relocated to Treasure Island, in Pinellas County, for what her friend called “a new beginning.”
Like Ms. Burch, Patricia Mikos, 80, had also moved to the county to start a new chapter. After spending most of her life in Buffalo, where she had worked as a hairdresser, Ms. Mikos retired to Dunedin, where she embraced the warm weather and enjoyed an active social life, according to her daughter, Nicole Blake, 46.
“She especially loved going out with friends for dinner and dancing,” Mrs. Blake said. “She was very, very happy there.”
Ms. Mikos was at her residence when water rushed inside and a possible electrical fire broke out, according to officials. Firefighters tried to reach her but were blocked by the rising water. After the water receded, Ms. Mikos was found dead and covered with debris.
Mrs. Blake said her mother would be remembered as a “wonderful lady with a big heart.”
Outside Florida, many of the storm-related deaths occurred when trees fell onto homes and vehicles.
A tree in Aiken County, S.C., claimed the life of Michael Roukous, 29, who had recently moved to the area. According to his father, Joe Roukous, Mr. Roukous was “a lot of people’s first phone call” when they needed help.
Mr. Roukous, originally from Dexter, N.Y., enjoyed hunting and camping. Growing up, Mr. Roukous lived on a large piece of land, and he would often be in the woods with his father, according to his family.
“He was everybody’s best friend,” his father said. “He was my best friend.”
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