In a matter of moments, a North Carolina man's life was turned upside down when heavy flooding from Hurricane Helene claimed the life of his wife, leaving him and their four children behind.
"All of a sudden, I heard something. Sounded like an explosion. And me and my wife went running through the house and the back door was shattered," Jamie Guinn described to Fox News Digital in a phone interview. "So I ran to go to the garage to get something to block the garage off and our garage was gone."
On Friday, Sept. 27, Guinn was inside his Minneapolis, North Carolina, home with his wife, Melissa, and their 8-year-old son, River, sheltering in place when chaos broke out. Guinn said their home overlooked the river, and they had been monitoring it all morning when everything came tumbling down.
"It sounded like a cannon going off. I just remember being crushed by the house falling all around me," Guinn continued. "And I can remember screaming for my little boy, and I could hear him screaming. And somehow, we dug through the house where it collapsed almost down into the river and I found him."
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Guinn said he was able to rescue his son and looked to see his wife sitting on top of where their home was, and that was the last time he saw her alive.
"And my wife was still up on the top where the house was. And she screamed at me, ‘Babe, watch out!' And so I tried to grab my little boy and threw him on my back because I figured it was another slide, and by the time I turned back around to try to make myself alert … she was gone," Guinn said, choking back tears.
"So I went to scream and was screaming for her, and I couldn't find my little boy. He turned around, and he just told me, 'Daddy, I think mommy's gone,'" Guinn described. "So we kept screaming and hollering for her and no one ever could find her. And at that time, I can't even remember if there was any part of the house left or if it was gone. It was all a blur."
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Guinn and his son were able to seek shelter at a nearby neighbor's home. Guinn said he suffered a fractured spine and a laceration to his head that got infected but that no pain was worse to endure than losing Melissa.
"She was my absolute best friend. I really don't know how I'm going to make it without her. We spent every day together. Everything I've done, she was involved in the same way as every other," Guinn. "Just going from having that person in your life every day to literally gone in the blink of an eye, it just shows how often you might take for granted being with someone."
Guinn said he and Melissa had been together for 17 years and were just weeks away from celebrating their 10-year wedding anniversary. He said he proposed around Halloween, and they had always exchanged small gifts each year.
"We always say I love you during the day, which we've done constantly, honestly. And every time I would always write back, ‘Love you more,’ so this year, I got her a little plaque, and it just gives a whole lot of reasons of what that really means," Guinn said. "She was the absolute greatest mother and wife we could have all even asked for."
Guinn said he is still in disbelief his community was struck so hard by Helene, something no one ever saw coming.
"How much the river water rose was just unfathomable. It's hard to put into words what that was like. It's stuff that's not supposed to happen here. It doesn't happen here," Guinn said. "We don't know where, I don't even know where we begin to start picking up pieces from after this."
Despite all the heartache and devastation, Guinn said it's been amazing to see his community come together for each other through this tragedy.
"As much as I hate to say it, I think our community is stronger than I've ever seen it. Everybody's always been here for each other, but this level of it, it's absolutely blown my mind how much everyone has stepped in to help us and everybody else around them is just … the outpouring is just, I don't even know how to explain it," Guinn said.
A GoFundMe page has been created by Guinn's friends and family to help with medical expenses and other financial burdens.
Hurricane Helene killed at least 232 people as the storm tore through the Southeast, with 72 of those coming from Buncombe County. Hundreds more are still unaccounted for from the deadliest mainland U.S. hurricane since Katrina in 2005.
