Joey Williams remembers wife Jenn Biggs Williams killed in Florida storm

Jenn Biggs Williams died in Florida after a falling tree trapped her inside her home during a storm. Her husband survived the impact and spoke publicly about the loss. She worked in human resources and was 57 years old.

The couple had been married for a decade. She is the first known fatality of Hurricane Isaias. The system struck the Gulf Coast over the weekend.

A second person died in connection with the storm in Birmingham, Alabama. The director of the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency confirmed that death.

Her husband, Joey Williams, said they went outside to photograph the sky. They also took pictures of storm damage. They went back inside their Florida house. A tree crashed through the roof and into the living room.

The fallen tree trapped both people beneath it. Williams crawled out from the debris. He began calling for his wife.

“I was able to squeeze out. My wife didn’t make it,” Williams said. “The tree just fell on her and it was … we like to think it was pretty instant, you know? I mean, just gone. Gone.”

Williams recruited a neighbor to help search. The storm produced winds of up to 100 mph. They could not move the tree.

They called emergency services for help. Williams said responders told him storm conditions limited their ability to assist. Crews later arrived and cut up the tree. Williams said it was too late.

“They let me say bye to her,” he said. “I watched the love of my life for 10 years go into the back of a coroner’s van and head down that road. That’s the hardest thing I ever swallowed in my life.”

Williams described his wife as deeply loved by her peers. He called her an “ultra-nice bada- person.”

Coroner personnel respond to fatal storm scenes across Florida to confirm identities. Emergency management officials document casualties and coordinate storm response efforts. First responders manage dangerous field conditions during active weather events.

Williams said he has called her phone five times just to hear her voice. He called his late wife his world.