12 tornadoes wallop homes, trees, utilities

After living four years in a mobile home and surviving a tornado Tuesday, Gloria Brown is ready to move to a home with more security than just tie-downs.

Huddled before dawn in her Gadsden bed with her two children and a flashlight, Brown could feel the wind rocking their home from side to side.

They were living through one of 12 confirmed tornadoes spawned in eight counties by the remains of Tropical Storm Frances.

Seven other reports of twisters turned out to be just strong winds, said Bernie Palmer, chief meteorologist at the Columbia office of the National Weather Service.

The S.C. record for confirmed tornadoes in one day is 22 on Aug. 16, 1994, when Tropical Storm Beryl caused funnel clouds, including one that severely damaged downtown Lexington, according to the state climate office.

No weather-related deaths were reported Tuesday, but several people in Richland and Sumter counties were injured, county emergency officials said.

The storms caused at least $2 million in damage to property, including:

• 22 Fort Jackson homes

• At least 20 homes in Kershaw County

• Almost 40 in Sumter County’s Forest Lake Estates area

• Shaw Air Force Base buildings

Brown’s bedroom clock showed it was 4:50 a.m. when powerful winds struck in Lower Richland.

“I turned on the flashlight, and there was nothing but darkness,” Brown said. “Everything was crashing and crunching.”

The sound of rain was as loud as a waterfall.

“I thought this trailer was going to go up in the air,” said her son, Justin Laury Brown, 12, a Southeast Middle School seventh-grader. “I’m just glad we’re still here.”

After the wind died and rescue workers began knocking on her door, Brown looked next door where an ailing couple lived.

Their home, at 113 Valley Down Road, looked like it had been stepped on. “All I saw was a big pile,” Brown said.

The couple, in their 50s or 60s, was trapped. The man who lives there, George Perry, would not let paramedics take him to the hospital until the woman, whom Brown knows only as Francine, was found, she said.

After about 30 minutes, Brown heard a firefighter call out.

“‘Hold it! Don’t make noise,’” he commanded about 20 others at the scene. “‘I hear somebody.’”

The couple was taken to Palmetto Health Richland, said George Rice, spokesman for the county ambulance service.

Perry was in fair condition Tuesday, according to a hospital spokeswoman. The woman’s name and medical condition were not available.

SUMTER COUNTY

Two tornadoes punched the area south of Sumter, the county seat.

“One gentleman ... said he was picked up and thrown 75 feet,” said LeRoy Woods director of the county’s emergency medical services. “It really demolished some mobile homes.”

About 9 a.m., two women and a man suffered cuts and bruises when four mobile homes were overturned in the Ithica Drive area, southwest of Sumter, Woods said.

Another mobile home, which was unoccupied, was blown partially into a nearby lake, he said.

One of the women was Paige Purvis, who was sleeping when winds hurled her mobile home about 100 feet into the street, relatives said.

“We found a couple of pictures in here,” said a cousin, Amber Geddings, 22. “She’s gonna have to start over.”

It won’t be a first for Purvis.

She lost everything when Hurricane Hugo swept through in 1989. To make matters worse, Purvis is about to be laid off from her job with Bosch, relatives said.

Tuesday afternoon, Purvis, 35, was still being treated at Tuomey Regional Medical Center for a back injury, her family said.

“My heart just breaks for her,” Geddings said.

Vic Jones, Sumter County’s public safety director, said tornadoes destroyed six homes, including five mobile homes, and a mobile office building in the area of Ithica Drive and Bethel Church Road.

In addition, 31 other homes in the area were damaged.

“It was a very quick storm, a very hard-hitting storm,” Jones said. He estimated damage in the county at $1.7 million.

About 10:30 a.m., a tornado touched down at Shaw Air Force Base — north of the Ithica Drive area — damaging buildings, vehicles, power lines and trees, according to a base news release.

A specific damage estimate was not immediately available.

RICHLAND COUNTY

Except for Fort Jackson and Gadsden, where a second mobile home was destroyed and a third damaged, Richland County was spared the wreckage in other parts of the Midlands.

A tornado that hit about 5:30 a.m. damaged 22 homes at Fort Jackson, displacing six families, said post spokeswoman Karen Soule. There were no reported injuries there.

The storm knocked out power to about 150 homes and closed on-post schools, the NCO club, commissary, youth center and a bank, post officials said.

All outdoor training exercises were suspended so soldiers could help with the recovery.

Several homes in Blythewood’s Lake Carolina subdivision had roof damage from high winds, and there were at least 34 traffic collisions during the storms that caused minor injuries, Rice said.

Damage totals might be available today, he said.

KERSHAW COUNTY

Kershaw County suffered its worst weather-related damage in at least six years, said assistant county administrator Brenda Wilhite. Assessment teams had covered about a third to a half of the affected areas and estimated at least $250,000 in damage, she said.

Two tornadoes touched down between 9:30 and 11 a.m. Tuesday, she said.

The two twisters ran parallel along Providence Road through Cassatt. A third storm hit Mill Creek Road near the Lancaster County line.

Portions of the Cassatt area were still without power Tuesday evening.

Mary Jane Mertz was working in a sheltered area behind Cassatt Country Store around 9:30 a.m. when she saw a wall of black clouds.

She and several others in the store ran to the church next door, more than the length of a football field away, to take shelter in its basement.

Mertz, who said she lived in the Lowcountry during Hurricane Hugo, said she had never seen a funnel cloud up close and personal. The experience, she said, was “surreal.”

“I didn’t believe it, that it was really happening.”

Staff writers Rick Brundrett, J.R. Gonzales, Kristy Eppley Rupon and Joey Holleman and The Associated Press contributed to this article. Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664 or cleblanc@thestate.com.