The remains of Nancy Tucker, 76, have been recovered in East Tennessee, ending a nearly two-year search for the last victim of Hurricane Helene still missing in the state.
Tucker’s body was found Saturday in a portion of the Cherokee National Forest known as Jackson Island, Washington County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Susan Saylor said. The final, positive identification came from a medical examiner Monday afternoon, while removal of the remains extended into Sunday evening.
Nancy Tucker vanished along with her husband Jimmy Tucker when flooding from the Nolichucky River destroyed their rural Washington County home on Sept. 27, 2024. His body was recovered within days. Their son also lived in the home but was at work when the flood struck, Saylor said.
James Matthews, with the local Emergency Management Agency, had logged the grueling effort to find her. Since February, search crews had walked more than 400 miles through the area but were blocked from searching through debris piles that reached 40 feet high in places.
The obstacles went beyond the physical. Because the area was federal land and believed to contain Native American burial sites, local responders were barred from bringing in heavy equipment needed for debris removal, Saylor said. They had to wait for federal action, and a contract for the removal work was only awarded this summer.
“On Saturday, I got the call that I’ve been waiting for for two years — just four days after the operation began,” Matthews said.
Matthews was among those at the site Sunday when the discovery became certain. “The moment we found a clear indication that this was Mrs. Tucker, everyone on the scene — we stopped. We cried. All of us cried. And we prayed,” he said.
Washington County Sheriff Keith Sexton had vowed after the storm to recover every missing person, a commitment Saylor cited when asked why responders never abandoned the search. “Why would you not want to bring what you could bring to the family, who had already lost a father?” Saylor asked. “There was never a question of stopping.”
An obituary for Jimmy Tucker from 2024 noted that he and Nancy met while both were serving in the U.S. Army and were married for 44 years.
Hurricane Helene killed more than 250 people and caused nearly $80 billion in damage across Florida, the Carolinas and into the Appalachian mountains. In the North Carolina-Tennessee border region, rainfall of up to 30 inches transformed normally gentle streams into torrents that moved trees, boulders, homes and vehicles, shattering century-old flood records. Many of those killed were swept away in the flooding.
In North Carolina, the body of Alena Ayers has never been recovered. Her case led the state legislature last year to pass Alena’s Law, making it easier to declare a person dead if they disappear during a natural disaster.
The federal debris removal contract that enabled Tucker’s recovery began operations just days before her remains were found.