Charlene Caroline Wilber Obituary, Death; – A woman from Tennessee, who had been reported missing from an Avery County campground during Hurricane Helene, was discovered deceased nearly a month after the storm, according to officials.
On October 23, the Avery County Sheriff’s Office was engaged in a search operation along the North Toe River when they located a woman’s body in the vicinity of the Ingalls community, as stated by Sheriff Mike Henley. The deceased was identified as 70-year-old Charlene Caroline Wilber, a resident of Telford, Tennessee. She had been reported missing from the Buck Hill Campground on September 27 due to the flooding caused by Helene.
Investigators confirmed Wilber’s identity through dental records. She was among three individuals still unaccounted for in Avery County following the storm. Sheriff Henley indicated that the official death toll in Avery County has now reached five, with two individuals still missing.
Statewide, Helene has been linked to over 100 fatalities, as reported by North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services. Nearly half of these deaths occurred in Buncombe County, where 43 fatalities were recorded. Initially, the county had reported as many as 72 deaths before officials recognized discrepancies in the data.
Yancey County follows as the North Carolina county with the second-highest death toll, reporting 10 fatalities. This county experienced one of the highest rainfall totals, with an astonishing 31 inches recorded in the town of Busick. Overall, Hurricane Helene has been attributed to more than 215 deaths across the Southeast, according to data compiled by the Associated Press.
