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Web posted Sunday, August
15, 2004
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Charley brushes quietly by
BEAUFORT: Decision to close schools on
Friday defended as prudent.
By Lolita Huckaby
Carolina Morning News
By 7
a.m. Saturday, the dozen or so remaining emergency
management personnel who spent the night in
Beaufort County's EOC were drinking the last dregs
of warmed over coffee and heading for
home.
"It was a very difficult storm,"
Emergency Management Director William Winn said as
his crews filed papers and watched television
monitors as Hurricane Charley churned its way
inland north of Charleston.
"It was a storm
with a number of potential tracks which made it
difficult to project when or if it would strike
here," he said.
Although winds in Beaufort
County never exceeded 20 mph, rainfall was
negligible and there were no power outages
reported, emergency crews were prepared throughout
Friday the 13th for the worse.
"One of the
difficult things we were facing was trying to
prepare the general population for a hurricane
that was still out in the Gulf of Mexico," Winn
said.
Because of concerns about flooding of
low lying areas, a voluntary evacuation was
ordered by Gov. Mark Sanford at noon
Friday.
"According to our reports, the
people responded to that evacuation notice,
although there's no way to say how many actually
left," Winn said.
A decision to not open
Beaufort County schools on Friday was made in the
early morning hours and Winn said although he's
already heard complaints, he stands by that
decision.
"I still think it was the best
thing to do," he said upon reflection. "With the
knowledge that there was going to be some sort of
evacuation notice around noon, that would mean
people would be leaving about the same time the
buses would have been getting on the roads taking
kids home. It could have made a difficult
situation worse."
Winn said, as has been
the case in past storms, cooperation among the
county and municipalities as well as the local
military bases was excellent.
"Every time
we go through this, we learn ways to do things
better," he said. "With Charley, we had to deal
with a potentially dangerous storm that didn't hit
us.
"The general public didn't see half of
what we did to be prepared," he added. "I'm just
happy to be able to send these folks home this
morning," Winn said.
Two shelters were
opened at 5 p.m. Friday, one at Beaufort
Elementary and the other at H.E. McCracken Middle
School in Bluffton.
About 28 people spent
the night at Beaufort Elementary, including
82-year-old Harold Washington of Warsaw
Island.
"I live on a dirt road and have a
bad heart. I didn't want to get stuck out there if
things did get bad. Luckily, it didn't," he said
Saturday morning as he waited for a ride
home.
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