Four days after Tommy and Mary Moss watched their home float down the Swannanoa River, the couple and their son Dallas returned to their neighborhood in Asheville, N.C., to begin searching through the mud-caked debris.

Dallas Moss quickly put on his boots, insistent on digging down to the foundation, turning over the remnants of their home’s hardwood flooring, never mentioning what they all most hoped to find: the photos and reminders of his older brother, who had died as a child from a rare genetic disorder.

After 10 days, they came out mostly empty-handed, with only a handful of sentimental items, including a figure of Pumba from “The Lion King” and a photo album from a baseball tournament. Generations of family photographs, childhood art and toys that they had collected in their home of more than 40 years had been washed away by the immense floodwaters unleashed by Hurricane Helene.

“I thought I was going to be able to find things,” said Dallas, 27. “I really did. We knew what we were trying to find, but we never said it out loud. It was just defeating.”