‘I can’t get to my babies!’ Middle Georgia family recounts Helene’s tragic fury

Hurricane Helene was bearing down on eastern Middle Georgia. But where and how fiercely it might strike that far inland wasn’t entirely clear.

As midnight came and went, the violent storm churned across the countryside from Valdosta toward Augusta, across the region’s rivers, the Ocmulgee and the Oconee.

As it turned out, the city of Sandersville — population 5,500, situated roughly in the center of a triangle formed by Macon, Statesboro and Augusta — sat in its crosshairs.

Herbert Taylor, Crystal’s 39-year-old husband, was in their bed, asleep with their other children — Harmony, 7, and Derrick, 4.

Crystal’s mother, Doris Dunn, called and woke her at about 4 a.m.

“Are your trees still standing?” her mother asked.

They were.

But the wind had kicked up.

Hard.

In their backyard stood a colossal oak with a trunk big around as a tractor tire. The tree, its canopy so broad that on sunny days it shaded the entire backyard and most of their house, was upright.

Herbert, a heavy-equipment operator, peeked outside.

He watched as the shelter for his truck was whisked skyward.

He headed back down a hallway toward his bedroom where his two youngest slept.

Before he got there, the house exploded.

The massive oak crashed onto the bed where Derrick and Harmony lay.

Herbert screamed.

“My babies!”

The tree landed on the bed, on them.

It also sparked an electrical fire.

Crystal and 11-year-old Cassidy raced to a neighbor’s house.

Cassidy, crying but calm, called 911.

She gave her address and said, “A tree fell on top of our house. My 4-year-old brother and my 7-year-old sister are in it. The house is on fire.”

The storm raged as rescuers arrived at their house on South Hospital Road. They put out the fire, but there was nothing anyone could do to move the mammoth oak and reach Derrick and Harmony.

Crystal, a pre-K teacher at her children’s school, Ridge Road Primary, wailed.

“I can’t get to my babies!” she cried.

She was afraid to call their names, worried they might cry out with their parents powerless to pull them to safety.

More than five hours passed before crews sawed through the tree and freed their bodies.

As the hours wore on with the children unreachable, their fates unknown, Crystal told herself, “My babies are gonna come out. They’re gonna be all right.”

She hoped Derrick would then see her and ask for cookies — graham crackers, his favorite.

Crystal prayed Harmony would emerge and request those special boiled white potatoes that her maternal grandfather, her “Papa,” cooked just for her.

But it wasn’t to be.

The Taylors believe Derrick and Harmony died instantly.

Credit: Courtesy of Family

Credit: Courtesy of Family

‘His stuff was his stuff’

Derrick De’Quan Taylor turned 4 in June. His birthday presents included an array of Hot Wheels cars and tiny monster trucks.

His mother said he was “very particular” about his toys. It was best not to touch them.

He had been diagnosed as autistic.

“His stuff was his stuff,” his mom said.

He was also fond of his father’s cellphone. Herbert Taylor laughs about that.

“Every time I got home,” he said, “Derrick wanted my phone. ‘Daddy,’ he’d say, ‘give me my phone.’ He called my phone his phone.”

His father’s phone in hand, Derrick clicked on YouTube to watch children’s shows like “Peppa Pig,” “Blippi” and “Bluey.”

He went to gymnastics classes and was wild about the trampolines. During class, he’d veer off and bound on his own.

“He would never do what he was supposed to be doing,” Crystal said.

He called the teacher there his girlfriend. He gave her smooches on the cheek.

“About 10 times,” his mother said.

And, boy, he was crazy about graham crackers. They were practically all he ate. They had to be Honey Maid brand in the blue boxes. And not the perforated rectangular crackers, the square ones. They had to be square.

But you didn’t dare call them “graham crackers” around him.

They were cookies. He insisted they be called cookies.

In pre-K, at his school, he had started eating applesauce on occasion.

Mostly, though, it was cookies. And occasionally grapes. If his mom cooked something at home, Derrick would promptly inform her, “I don’t want it.”

“Ma,” he’d say, “I want cookies.”

Which was fine by her. Anything he did melted her heart.

Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.

Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.

‘Ride-or-die partner’

Harmony Le’Andrea Taylor’s nickname was “Tootbug.” Her papa, C.W. Dunn — her mother’s 68-year-old dad — dubbed her that.

He’s not sure why he did, but it stuck. She liked it.

Harmony, a second-grader, was a natural dancer. She was rarely seen not sporting a dress — or a tutu.

Her outfit, which almost always included a hair bow, was often paired with cowgirl boots she pranced around in.

“She wasn’t about really dressing up,” her papa said. “She was always country.”

And she could never sit still.

He took her for rides in his pickup. She’d hop in, roll the window down, stick her arm out, ready to roll. To Walmart. To Dollar General. But he could go anywhere.

“My ride-or-die partner,” he called her.

Her go-to McDonald’s order was a Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal with sweet tea.

She liked singing, too, and posting on TikTok.

“She’d get my phone all the time and record herself,” her mother said.

‘Made for each other’

Harmony and Derrick shared a bedroom. When they fell asleep, they’d be side by side, Harmony’s arm wrapped around Derrick.

When they rode in the back seat of their mother’s Chevy Tahoe, they liked her to play singer Muni Long’s hit R&B ballad “Made for Me” on the stereo.

The children belted out the chorus to one another. They knew every line.

The “Twin” song, they called it.

Twin, where have you been? / Nobody knows me like you do. / Nobody gon’ love me quite like you.

“They had a special bond,” their father said.

“I guess they were made for each other,” their mother said. “It fit them.”

Wherever Harmony went, Derrick often followed. She was, their mother said, “the little-big sister.”

“She was dependable to the point that when they went outside, we could trust her with her little brother outside,” Crystal Taylor said. “When she came back in, she made sure he was with her.”

She also made sure her uncle, Mike Dunn — her mother’s brother — supplied her with chewing gum. Whenever he’d wheel up in his black pickup, Harmony raced over and said, “Can I get some gum?”

If Uncle Mike didn’t produce her beloved peppermint Orbit quickly enough, into the truck she’d go to fetch it.

Funeral plans

Outside the grandfather’s house Monday, while the family told stories about Harmony and Derrick, someone mentioned that Uncle Mike had plans to buy Harmony one last pack. To place in her casket.

The funeral is Sunday afternoon at Union Hill Baptist Church.

Harmony and Derrick will be laid to rest in the same casket — with her arm wrapped around him the way she did every night.

Next to Derrick, his loved ones will place a treat for him. A pack of square graham crackers.

Cookies.

Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.

Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.