As Penny Turner lay safe in her bed early Sunday morning in Charlotte, all she could think about was her sister Jeannette and her cousin Jo Anne, whom she kept picturing in varying degrees of peril — or, most chillingly …
She shivered. She tried not to even go there.
But by then, the 65-year-old grandmother of eight hadn’t heard a word from either of them in more than 48 hours, since before Hurricane Helene started ravaging western North Carolina cities and towns like the one in Avery County where all three of them had owned second homes for years…