At least they’re all three together. That’s what a devastated Georgia man says he must remind himself.
Obie Lee Williams didn’t have the chance to meet his newborn twin grandsons. Now, he must prepare to bury the young boys and his daughter who died when a tree fell on their Thomson home during Hurricane Helene’s deadly path through the Southeast.
On Thursday, Gov. Brian Kemp said at least 33 people were killed in Georgia after the storm made landfall late Sept. 26. The death toll for Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas hit 200, according to The Associated Press.
Obie Williams’s grandsons, Khyzier and Khazmir, are believed to be Helene’s youngest victims.
His daughter, Kobe Williams, had helped care for younger siblings, nieces and nephews for most of her life. But on Aug. 20, she became a mother to twin boys.
“Kobe was a new parent, but she was a good parent,” Obie Williams told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday.
Williams said he spoke with his daughter daily, including the minutes before the storm threatened Georgia last week. Kobe, one of 15 children, told her dad she planned to stay home with her sons.
“She was going to ride it out at the house,” Williams said.
Kobe also spoke with a younger sister.
“Take care of my babies,” she said.
It would be the last time Kobe Williams spoke with her family.
When her family could no longer reach her, a brother went to Kobe Williams home. There, he made the heartbreaking discovery that she and her sons had not survived. Her family believes she was trying to protect her babies when a tree crashed through the roof.
“From my understanding, she was standing over them,” Obie Williams said. “She fell on top of them and then smothered them.”
Along with the Williams newborns, two other Georgia children were also killed in the storm. About 50 miles away, Harmony Taylor, 7, and her 4-year-old brother, Derrick, died when a tree fell on their Sandersville home.
Obie Williams said his family is awaiting autopsies on his daughter and grandsons and funeral plans are pending. He and his other children and their families managed to escape the storm unharmed. But losing his daughter and her young sons is still hard to understand.
“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,” Williams told The Associated Press. “Now I’ll never get to meet my grandsons. It’s devastating.”
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