'A piece of all of us': Children lost in the storm, mourned in Hurricane Helene aftermath

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – A single pink rose blossomed on a scraggly bush next to where the front wall of the Drye family home stood until 16 days ago, the plant's greenery a welcomed brightness amid the mud-coated land.

Two thorny offshoots, each holding a single unopened bud, clung defiantly to the bush. Despite floodwaters rising 27 feet above the road, the plant persevered, its leaves now soaking up the bright Asheville sun. A smattering of plants and at least one tree also remained standing when the waters receded after Tropical Storm Helene.

But it was the trio of roses that Megan Drye took solace in on a Sunday afternoon in mid-October.

She believes they are a sign from her parents and young son, who perished when the family’s home collapsed into the Swannanoa River on Sept. 27. Megan, 39, was the sole survivor of the flood, which killed 7-year-old Micah Drye and Nora and Michael Drye, both 73.

Micah was just one of the children lost in the storm. Nine-year-old Felix Wisely and his 7-year-old brother, Lucas, also died. At least one other student from Buncombe County Schools is confirmed dead, and roughly 20 remained unaccounted for Monday. Superintendent Rob Jackson said the district is "continuing to search" for them. There are hopes many are safe with family.

As the nation's attention turned to Florida and the devastation wrought by Hurricane Milton, North Carolina is still reeling from Helene, mourning those confirmed dead and holding vigil for those still missing.

In Buncombe County, home to Asheville, at least 72 have died, the largest share of western North Carolina’s 124 confirmed deaths so far, according to USA TODAY Network analysis. Authorities expect the death toll to rise as search and rescue crews continue recovery efforts.

Megan Drye and her family are trying to pick up the pieces and focus on remembering how their loved ones lived, rather than how they died.

"Micah was a piece of all of us," she told the Asheville Citizen-Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. "He was silent − he was actually quite shy until he opened up, just like Mom, and then he was your best friend.

"And he was affectionate, just like my dad and me. He got a little piece of everyone."

Drye sisters await news as the flood rages

When floodwaters forced her family to the roof, Megan texted her sisters who live out of state and told them they had escaped to the highest spot in their home. Though cell service was already knocked out, Megan's phone upgrade the week before allowed her to message by satellite.

Her sister Jess Drye Turner quickly took to Facebook to post about the increasingly frightening situation.

“They are watching 18-wheelers and cars floating by,” she wrote as flooding ravaged the region. “This is definitely a moment when faith is all you have. God knows the outcome already.”

She soon added a photo Megan had snapped of her white sneakers on the roof, water nearly reaching the eaves, and two hours later, she added a second photo. It drew thousands of reactions.

Drye Turner's next update wasn’t for almost 11 hours. Her parents and nephew had drowned, she wrote. Megan also was plunged into the river when the home collapsed, though she was rescued after becoming wedged between storage containers.

Drye Turner and her sister didn't know where Megan was taken. As she prepared to leave Texas and head to western North Carolina, she turned again to Facebook. Could anyone help them find Megan?

Swept away by 'a big wave'

Felix Wisely, 9, loved all things magical. The supernatural, folklore and creatures that most don’t believe in. He “loved to talk about the unknown,” his family said.

His brother, 7-year-old Lucas, had an affinity for superheroes. He'd attend school dressed as one character or another, earning a smile from teachers and staff. He also loved cows.

Like Micah, Felix and Lucas attended Buncombe County Schools. Also like Micah, they died in Helene's floodwaters on Sept. 27.

The Wisely brothers were with their mother – Alison “Aly” Wisely – and her fiance, Knox Petrucci, as they tried to flee their home in Green Mountain, a small town in Yancey County.

Around noon, the group piled into their car to escape rising water from the overflowing Toe River, Petrucci’s sister, Briana Petrucci Yarbrough, wrote in a news release.

Yarbrough said a man witnessed the family’s attempted escape and relayed the story to surviving family: The four tried to drive away, but their car began to float. They left the vehicle and tried to return home when “a big wave came and swept them all into the Toe River,” their father, Lance Wisely, wrote on Facebook.

The family’s home ultimately flooded, too. Water reached within 2 inches of the ceiling in some rooms, Lance wrote, questioning whether the family would have fared any better if they had stayed put.

Five days after the group was swept away, Lance wrote that they were all presumed dead. Aly's body was discovered by recovery crews a day later; the day after their mother was found, the boys' bodies were found.

Aly, 31, was sanctuary operations manager at Carolina Memorial Sanctuary, where she “gently guided others through their times of grief,” Yarbrough said. Petrucci, 41, was a local beekeeper, manager and community educator in Weaverville.

Yarbrough called the boys “beloved, curious, precocious” and “sweet.” “It was evident how loved those boys felt, and how free they felt to be their colorful, vividly imaginative selves,” Yarbrough said.

A mother watches as her son, parents are swept away

The Facebook plea from Megan Drye's sister Jess proved fruitful. A nurse at the hospital where Megan was taken alerted her director, who allowed the sisters to speak by phone. Megan had suffered a broken ankle and hypothermia but no serious injuries.

Except for the toll of watching her family swept away.

The family was on the roof for hours as the floodwaters rushed by them, she told her sisters. Eventually, the house gave way. The group managed to hang on to the roof, which was floating. Then, power lines and trees dislodged Megan and her father. Her mother and son, who were nearby, managed to remain in place.

As her father began to slide toward the water, Megan tried to grab him, but they both fell in. She managed to get back out of the water but could no longer see her mom or son.

She could hear the 7-year-old scream, however.

"Jesus, save me!" she remembers him crying. Then "chaos happened," she said.

Megan watched as her father floated by in the strong current. Soon after, her mother began screaming for young Micah. Not long after, she, too, floated by Megan. Micah followed. Megan was struggling herself to stay afloat. She and her dog, Bella, were stuck in a tree felled by the flood. The water kept pushing her under.

At some point, she said, she felt a presence within her that guided her next steps.

"'You have to let go, and you have to let go of everything on you,'" Megan recalled a voice telling her. She had to release the dog. "I remember thinking about Bella and saying, 'I'm so sorry.' It was loss after loss after loss."

She listened to a voice she believed was God's and removed her shoes and her backpack, becoming light enough that the water stopped pulling her down. Then, she let go of the tree, eventually becoming stuck between the two storage trailers, where she was found.

"It wasn't until they finally rescued me that I completely turned, like, human again, and completely crumbled," she said. "I don't think that (human) version of me could have survived, so that's only God or something bigger that that filled me in those moments."

Three days after the flood, the family learned search and rescue workers found Micah’s body about a quarter-mile from where Megan was rescued, a mile from where the home once stood. Two days after that, search crews found father Michael Drye’s body. And three days later, they received a call that mother Nora Drye was found.

Remembering their loved ones

In the wake of that horrifying day, the three sisters are turning to one another for comfort. They also take solace in family memories.

Michael always found time to comfort anyone in need. A family law attorney, Jess Drye Turner joked that she didn't know how her father pushed through, given he "just absorbed everything about everybody."

Nora Drye was a strong woman who would do anything for her family and stepped in to help Megan, a single mom, countless times.

And Micah, a student at Haw Creek Elementary School, was gentle and affectionate, a lover of superheroes and dinosaurs and Legos. He was one of several Helene victims who attended Buncombe County Schools.

Buncombe County school administrators did not respond to USA TODAY Network inquiries about attempts to reach families of the roughly 20 missing students or whether law enforcement was involved.

School districts across western North Carolina have been conducting welfare checks since Helene devastated the region last month. Buncombe is one of the first to provide student death tolls. BCS is the largest district in the area with 45 schools, thousands of students and hundreds of staff.

“The loss of anyone diminishes us,” Jackson, the superintendent, said at an emergency Board of Education meeting Oct. 11. “Our school system is diminished by this loss.”

As Megan Drye thinks back to the roses that remain outside her family's home, she is even more convinced the flowers were her family's spirits. Micah, Nora and Michael were all strong, pushing through any hardship that came up − even if it was just a dark kitchen. Much like the roses, they bloomed more vividly after a challenge.

As she thought about the plants, the sadness in Megan's voice abated.

"The seeds that are planted and the roots that are embedded can't be taken away, and they will come back and bloom again," Megan said. "I believe that's a sign, that that's them saying, 'Hello, it's bigger than us.' It's bigger than anything earthly."

Contributing: Phaedra Trethan, USA TODAY

Isabel Hughes is a Delaware-based public safety reporter aiding the Asheville Citizen-Times with post-Helene coverage. She can be reached at [email protected] and on X at @izzihughes.