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County residents clean up after storm

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Wind gusts up to 40 mph shook southern Beaufort County on Tuesday night causing power outages and damaging trees as Tropical Storm Alberto moved through South Carolina.

• Photo: Tracy Rowe, with B.S. Tree Experts Inc., starts a chain saw to cut some limbs that were too big for the tree grinder Wednesday afternoon in Sea Pines. Rowe was part of many different crews cleaning up debris left over from the stormy weather.
  Jonathan Dyer/The Island Packet
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Alberto weakened to a tropical depression Wednesday as it moved through the state, dumping heavy rain and spawning a few tornadoes.

More than 4 inches of rain fell in Bluffton, while Hilton Head Island reported almost 3 inches, according to the National Weather Service. Tropical storm warnings for the coast were dropped early Wednesday.

Wind gusts knocked down trees and power lines in Beaufort, Colleton and Jasper counties late Tuesday.

In all, 4,181 Palmetto Electric Cooperative customers lost electricity on Hilton Head in the Port Royal Plantation area, Bluffton around Sheridan Park and Hampton County, according to a company spokeswoman.

A total of 3,500 South Carolina Electric & Gas customers lost power in the Bluffton, Beaufort and Fripp Island areas, a company spokesman said.

At least six small tornadoes were reported in the Lowcountry.

In southern Beaufort County, a large tree branch damaged a Buick parked at Yummy House, 2 Southwood Park Drive, Hilton Head, the Sheriff's Office reported.

In northern Beaufort County, Michael Murphy, owner of Preservation Tree Care, said his crews weren't too busy Wednesday morning -- five jobs, mostly near the Burton area. The trees that toppled had faults in them, he said. One went through a fence, another right on top of a pickup, Murphy said.

"Thankfully, it was not a major wind event," he said of Alberto.

A tornado was spotted over the Broad River near Laurel Bay on Tuesday afternoon, but it

tdissipated before touching ground, said William Winn, director of the Beaufort County Emergency Management Department.

Meteorologists' radar screens caught the formation of a tornado in the Levy area in Jasper County, but that one never hit land either, said Tom Watson, director of Jasper County Emergency Services.

Two boats moored off Bay Street in downtown Beaufort were tossed out into the marsh, but the Downtown Marina and its boats sustained little to no damage, employees said. The Port Royal Landing Marina had minor damage to its dock, and some boats there rubbed up against each other due to broken dock lines, employee Rion Salley said.

Alberto, with maximum sustained winds of about 50 mph, made landfall early Tuesday afternoon near Adams Beach, Fla., about 50 miles southeast of Tallahassee.

The Associated Press and The Beaufort Gazette contributed to this report.
Contact Ginny Skalski at 706-8144 or . To comment on this story, please go to islandpacket.com.