- Yeah, Hurricane Helene took a lot from the folks who live here in western North Carolina.

Homes were lost, lives were lost, and the storm also took Lenny Widawski, and it still hasn't given him back.

(soft music) - He's just not there.

You're gonna get me crying, and I don't wanna cry.

- Lydia Widawski tears up as she walks up to where her brother Lenny's cabin on the river used to be.

- But yeah, he always wore that hat and these flowered shirts.

He'd be out here every day on the front porch, practicing his fiddle or his guitar.

(soft music continues) - [Jeff] Lydia says Lenny's music seemed to flow with the river itself until the river washed it all away.

All except for this old stone chimney.

- You know, the river just came up, and people's property not just like this, but the way the water expanded out, it just took everything with it.

- [Jeff] The damage in and around Burnsville from Hurricane Helene was devastating.

In many places, roads are still impassable.

Rebuilding is still impossible because of the destruction that still remains.

But Lenny Widawski's house wasn't just destroyed, it disappeared with Lenny inside and no sign of him since then.

- I don't find peace coming back here.

I mean, there's nothing here.

(soft music continues) - [Jeff] Nothing but this old fiddle.

Now fashioned into a memorial for Lenny.

- Says "RIP old friend.

You were the best."

I had no idea that so many people knew him.

I love him.

- [Jeff] The violin was left behind here in Burnsville by his musician friends and fans over in Spruce Pine, where Lenny played his fiddle on stage every Tuesday night.

- He did some beautiful melodies on this song.

- [Jeff] Barry Stagg owns this former downtown drugstore, now a listening room, with memories of Lenny lingering in every note they played.

♪ Does the power of love dissolve in time ♪ ♪ Does the magic of those memories go old like summer wine ♪ ♪ Does the - [Jeff] So that's him there in Hawaiian shirt.

- In the Hawaiian shirt, yes.

Yes, he was here every Tuesday night without fail.

That's why we miss him so much, because he was just almost like a brother to me, because whenever I saw him, I got a hug, and whenever I left, I got a hug.

- Actually, Lenny was the first person I met here.

He pretty much invited me to come in here and play.

He had no idea that I was even a musician, and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Lenny.

- He had that personality.

He would reach out to people.

He knew how to kind of include them in whatever it was he was doing.

- Lenny was sort of the life of the party everywhere he went and he brought life, joy, and good times to any gathering.

And it was apparent when he entered the room.

You could just feel the energy.

♪ Does the power of love dissolve in time ♪ - For 13 years, Lenny stood right to my right, and he was an amazing musician.

Violinist.

Do we miss him?

Absolutely.

♪ Turn into gold (singers harmonizing) - [Jeff] Driving back to Burnsville, we passed dump truck after dump truck, hauling load after load of storm debris down the mountain.

It's that debris, and the rugged terrain, and the winter weather here in the mountains, that makes the search for Lenny Widawski and the others still missing so difficult.

- There comes a point when you've done all you can do, and, fortunately, we've still got people who are trying, and they'll continue to try for a while, and hopefully, they're successful.

We don't know.

- [Jeff] The Burnsville Fire chief ads that volunteers are doing most of the search and recovery now following that same path along the Toe River where friends and neighbors last saw Lenny alive.

- And when he went into his house, he was pretty much, from what I understand, prepared.

I mean, he had a life jacket on and all this that, but it just took the whole house within minutes.

- [Jeff] Lenny's best friend, Steve Casper, says Lenny's house traveled downstream more than a mile where witnesses say it finally struck a washed out bridge.

- So when his house hit it, they said what they saw is the house just instantly nose-dived and never came back up again.

A couple weeks later, they had found his life jacket, they had found pieces of his house, they found pieces of his property.

Not much, but nothing else.

(soft music) - He's got to be under all this mess somewhere.

(soft music continues) I'm missing Lenny.

I definitely am missing Lenny.

(soft music continues) - Yeah, right after Hurricane Helene, the list of people unaccounted for numbered in the hundreds.

Now it's fewer than 10.

Lenny Widawski is still on that list of the missing, but there's another list here in Burnsville that's growing.

It's the list of people who are missing Lenny.