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T&D area breathes sigh of relief

For folks fortunate enough to be living in The T&D Region, Saturday was just another day in paradise, with sunny skies, mild temperatures and gentle breezes.

Barely a hundred miles away, a much weakened but still dangerous Hurricane Charley landed a punch on the South Carolina coastline before moving northward.

Orangeburg County officials monitored the storm's progress throughout Friday night and Saturday morning, said John Smith, county emergency services director.

They were pleased that it followed the track - away from the greater Orangeburg area - that forecasters had anticipated as of 2:30 p.m. Friday, Smith added.

Horry, Georgetown and Charleston counties were not as fortunate.

As of early Saturday afternoon, 65,000 customers of Santee Cooper and 15,000 customers of South Carolina Electric & Gas Company were without electricity, according to the utilities.

"Most of the outages were caused by downed trees and fallen tree limbs," Santee Cooper said in a statement. "Crews are fully mobilized and working to restore power as safely and quickly as possible. ... Priority is being given to restoring power to health care facilities, emergency shelters and public safety offices."

SCE&G had 32,000 customer outages at the height of the storm, mostly in coastal Mount Pleasant, Sullivans Island, Isle of Palms and McClellanville, spokesperson Mary Green Brown said.

"The storm was pretty unpredictable in its path," she said. "Basically, we got lucky. It could have been worse."

"We were as ready as we could be. We had our crews ready to roll," Brown said. "We sent some crews from Columbia to help with the restoration (of power) in Charleston."

No storm damage was reported in Orangeburg, Dorchester or Calhoun counties, officials said.

But a dispatcher in Calhoun County warned against becoming complacent about hurricanes so early in the season. "It's only mid-August" and "they have two more (storms) out there now," she said.

The Orangeburg County Chapter of the American Red Cross was poised to open eight shelters if needed - five in Orangeburg County and one each in Allendale, Barnwell and Colleton counties - said Cindy Smith, executive director.

"It took every resource we had," she continued. "We need more volunteers" to receive training and become qualified to perform disaster relief duties.

Limited manpower is preventing the local chapter from contributing volunteers to work at the 250 Red Cross shelters now open in Florida and the 36 Red Cross shelters now open in South Carolina, Smith said.

Following a disaster, many kind-hearted people want to contribute toward the recovery effort, Smith said. She encouraged people to take actions that will have the maximum benefit for the storm victims.

For instance, don't collect and send water, clothing or canned goods to a disaster site, she said, because usually a disaster site has no place to store, sort and properly distribute donated items.

A much better idea, she suggested, is to collect money and donate it to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, which can efficiently obtain and distribute emergency supplies as well as cash to the needy.

Cash donations give recipients the opportunity to "buy what they need and what they like. It helps them keep their dignity" and reduces waste. "The money goes back into the local economy, which helps even more," she said.

Smith also suggested not restricting use of donations to Hurricane Charley relief efforts, because the Red Cross needs money to proactively maintain its ability to respond instantly to future disasters.

That may be sooner than we'd like to think. "We have two more hurricanes on their way," she said.

-T&D Staff Writer Lee Hendren can be reached by e-mail at lhendren@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5552.