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Date Published: September 2, 2004
Pay attention, be prepared for Hurricane Frances
The word from the weather forecasters is
ominous: Hurricane Frances is moving inexorably toward the Southeast
United States.
Now the question becomes: where and
when?
We join with the forecasters in their best advice: get
ready; pay attention.
This is a monster hurricane, a Category
4 packing winds up to 140 miles per hour. And like most hurricanes,
it is unpredictable. Computer models indicate it could strike
anywhere from south Florida to Cape Hatteras, N.C. That includes
South Carolina.
Frances’ path eerily resembles that of the
last unwelcome visitor to our state: Hurricane Hugo 15 years ago.
Frances could easily stall off the Florida coast, gather more
strength from the warm ocean waters and turn northward.
We
urge our readers to not only pay attention but be prepared. No one
expected Hugo to continue its path inland after it came ashore near
Charleston on Sept. 21, 1989. But it did, and Sumter, Lee and
Clarendon counties were hammered mercilessly by its
100-mile-per-hour-plus winds that decimated our communities. The
bill for Hugo was on the north side of $600 million.
Every
resident should pay attention to the weather advisories via TV
stations, newspapers, the Internet and radio. One helpful Web site
we recommend, along with the Weather Channel (http://www.weather.com/), is http://www.myscgov.com/, which contains
information from emergency preparedness officials about the threat
to South Carolina.
In the meantime, we share this sobering
warning from a weather advisory from the Weather Channel: “Tropical
storm force winds and building surf (especially along the
Carolina coast) will precede the approach of the hurricane by
quite some time.”
Let’s hope that our state will be spared
the brunt of Frances. But to repeat: pay attention and be
prepared.
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September 8, 2004 
