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Over 120 dead across the Southeast; North Carolina was devastated by the storm

Over 120 dead across the Southeast; North Carolina was devastated by the storm

Donna Fagersten, 66, had gone to a friend’s two-story condo to shelter from Hurricane Helene. But she went to get her cat and couldn’t make it back to her friend’s house, her son told NBC News on Sunday.

Fagersten is one of nine people identified by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office who were killed by Hurricane Helene in the county. She lived on one of Florida’s barrier islands, Indian Rocks Beach, where there were the most deaths and many of those killed were older adults. The sheriff’s office said all victims were in areas of a mandatory evacuation zone.

“I don’t even know if this is right because I wasn’t down there checking anything, but it seems like she decided to check on her cat,” said John Runner, Fagersten’s son. “Didn’t make it back.”

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said water entered her home and it appeared she drowned. But Runner said his mother was found in the parking lot outside her apartment and “she didn’t make it to the house.”

Runner, a high school art teacher in West Virginia, and his brother, a firefighter also in West Virginia, hoped to be in Florida on Monday or Tuesday to inspect their mother’s home and deal with the aftermath.

He said he usually spoke to his mother before hurricanes to check on her, but he wasn’t paying attention to the news and wasn’t aware that this dangerous storm was heading toward Florida’s west coast. They last spoke about a few weeks ago, he said.

When he talked to her about leaving in other hurricanes, she was always reserved. Her routine was to go to her friend’s apartment, which was on stilts.

“I’d call and she’d always say, ‘Yeah, you know, I have a cat.’ The cat doesn’t travel well. It’s kind of hard to move.’ … Her friend lived a few blocks away and had a two-story condo.”

“They called to evacuate her where she was at Indian Rocks Beach, but she obviously didn’t go,” he said.

There was no higher place for his mother to reach safety, he said.

“If you go behind the condos, it’s the Intracoastal Waterway right there, so there’s water on both sides. On one side is the Gulf of Mexico and on the other side is the Intracoastal. It is surrounded by water and is flat,” he said.

Fagersten was on leave from her job as a teacher. She had broken her hip in the spring and was just finishing her therapy. She plans to retire when she’s finished, possibly before the end of the school year, Runner said.

She had five grandchildren.

He said his mother enjoyed traveling. Her marriage to his stepfather had taken her to Germany, and while there she went to Turkey and took family trips to Scotland and Portugal.

“Obviously she loved the beach,” he said. “She loved being outside in that area, that’s why she lived there.”