MYRTLE BEACH--Ophelia's brush didn't seem to perturb
this beach town where the storm was forecast to land only days before.
An already quiet post-summer season just got a little quieter.
On Tuesday, a voluntary evacuation had been called for. Schools closed.
Shelters opened, but only 54 people had turned out by nightfall. Ophelia had
been downgraded to a tropical storm earlier in the day but later regained
hurricane status.
As the storm crawled up the coast, the Grand Strand began to feel the effects
of Ophelia's outer bands. The beach is expecting tropical storm force winds this
morning.
Up and down the beach, a stream of tourists with bewildered smiles endured
winding bands of blowing sand, watching the massive purple clouds offshore.
Only when the squalls got heavy in the afternoon did the beach empty. By
evening high tide, waves taller than the small dunes between the ocean and Ocean
Boulevard had swallowed the beach and were lapping at parking lots. A step off
the dunes was a step into the Atlantic.
Across the boulevard, Waddy Joseph trimmed the oleander from his screened
porch at one of the few private homes left along hotel row. He wore work gloves,
swimming trunks and socks and shoes.
"I'm going to turn over the rockers on the porch, just in case," he said.at a
beachfront hotel. The gas stations took down their price signs rather than have
them blow away.
Earlier in the day, the dinosaurs at Jurassic Park miniature golf had been
tied down with yellow line and the park closed. But golfers played one after
another at Arcadian Shores in North Myrtle Beach, where the wind and showers
were heavier.
Derek White looked like the local ghost called the Gray Man, but he dangled
his flip-flops from his fingers. He toyed with the roiling surf in front of the
Myrtle Beach Resort where he and his wife Jutta planned to ride out the storm.
The couple are here from Ontario, Canada, for their annual September holiday.
She is from Germany, he from England. Fierce sea storms don't faze them, he
said.
"I think they're being a little paranoid, with New Orleans' situation.
They're over-reacting," he said about the voluntary evacuation. But when asked
if he was staying at the Lakewood Campground next door, he shook his head
quickly, "No, no. No, no, no."
At the campground, all the recreational vehicles around the Lovelaces' and
Stasiewskis' spot behind the dunes had been moved. Shelvy Lovelace was hooking
his RV onto a truck, but just to move a few hundred feet back under the trees.
"Yeah, because the beach is right over that little hump there," said Dixie
Lovelace, his wife. "I said we have to get off this corner."
No, they weren't going to give up their regular Myrtle Beach trip to go home
to Green, Ohio. Like others up and down the beach, they weren't going to leave
unless a mandatory evacuation was ordered.
"It's been beautiful. Last night was really weird," Dixie Lovelace said.
Off 3rd Avenue, McAdoo's Tiki Bar and Grill had the doors flung open to the
stiff wind and the Drifters' "Up On The Roof" playing. On the beach,
sisters-in-law Kristie and Angie Brock sat back in their beach chairs, tossing
cheese popcorn for gulls to chase down in a brisk breeze.
Behind them a red "No swimming. Dangerous rip currents" flag snapped. They
were on vacation with eight Brock family members from Athens, Tenn., staying on
the 11th floor of the Sandy Beach hotel, where they planned to watch the storm
from behind the sliding glass door as the gales came in.
"You don't get hurricanes in Tennessee," Kristie Brock said. "I'm not losing
my vacation to Ophelia."
In North Myrtle Beach, Beach Cove Resort assistant manager Jim Shepley
shrugged at the counter. Business slows down after Labor Day anyway. The storm
had moved so slowly that most of the beachfront properties had stacked chairs or
brought them in a day or two earlier.
Out on the beach, Joel Jennings unhurriedly rolled the Hobie Cat catamaran
that he usually leaves up against the dunes back to his home a few blocks in.
His son, Kyle, and two friends pushed as Jennings pulled.
It was too rough to sail, he said. But he kept eyeing the waves. "Hopefully,
this thing will stay out in the ocean. We'll go surfing later."
