Hurricane turns Palmetto Breeze into shuttle to safety for 100 Beaufort County residents

Helen Masters took a lot of phone calls on Wednesday.

From the Bluffton headquarters of Palmetto Breeze Transit, she answered an ever-ringing phone to tell Beaufort County’s residents where they could go to be evacuated ahead of Hurricane Matthew, what shelters they’d be heading to, who they could call to hang on to their dog or cat, and what would happen if they missed the bus. The answers were a variation of the same theme: “Bless your heart,” Masters would say. “Don’t panic. It’s going to be OK, baby.”

Hour after hour, callers with no ride or no place to go learned there were dozens of pick-up locations from Lady’s Island to Hilton Head; there was room for thousands of people in shelters from Ridgeland to Hampton; kind-hearted animal control employees were taking in animals for the duration of the storm; and if you miss the bus, it’ll come around again.

Masters, a longtime dispatcher, even talked to one man who was very, very upset with Gov. Nikki Haley, who ordered the mandatory evacuation of all coastal counties on Tuesday afternoon ahead of the storm, which has devastated Haiti and is expected to remain a Category 2 by the time it strikes the Lowcountry on Saturday.

“Oh,” she said after hanging up, “he is not happy that there is not a Beaufort County shelter. But if I only have one person turning me in, that’s pretty good.”

For Masters, and most Palmetto Breeze employees, Wednesday was a first-time experience assisting with an evacuation. Still, by the end of the day, the fleet of eight buses and 10 vans managed to evacuate about 100 people in need. Most were taken to Ridgeland-Hardeeville High School, which has been converted to an American Red Cross shelter.

One driver, Tyrone Drayton, said it was humbling to help people from all walks of life.

On his rounds of Hilton Head on Wednesday, he evacuated Spanish-speaking families from Cordillo Courts, international workers for the island’s tourist spots, locals trying to make their way to family in Hampton and a homeless man who’d spent the past month in the hospital with pneumonia and a broken leg.

The international contingent — a group of Filipino interns evacuating from Hilton Head Resort — were even more surprised by the experience.

“Where there’s a hurricane in the Philippines, we don’t do like this,” said 20-year-old John Aureus, who works at Salty Dog Cafe and arrived on the island two months ago. “We stay in the house.”

The group’s advice to South Carolinians, so unused to the Category 2-conditions barreling toward us?

“Stay safe,” Aureus said. “And pray! I have my rosary in my pocket.”

Someone at Holy Family Catholic Church must have had something similar in mind. Each child who boarded a Palmetto Breeze evacuation van at the Pope Avenue pick-up spot had been given a small card with a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

One little girl dressed in a mermaid T-shirt absentmindedly flipped the cardboard around as they drove to Hilton Head Island Airport, the staging area for assisted evacuations in southern Beaufort County.

In the next seat over, her older brother and sister draped their plush blanket over their laps and held tight to the bags that contained their snacks: Halloween candy, Goldfish and — their favorite — PopTarts.

And for entertainment, “We brought my mom’s phone, so that has games in it,” 10-year-old Katie Morales said.

Like several families evacuating from the south-end of the island, the Morales family doesn’t have a car. So that morning, they’d hoisted their belongings off the floor in case of flooding, packed bags for at least three days in a shelter and went outside to wait for the bus.

Another young girl who lived in Cordillo Courts said she wasn’t sure the bus would come, so she was thrilled when Drayton rolled up. She wondered aloud if the place they were going would have a trampoline. If not, she said, at least she has Oreo cookies.

Not everyone was so anxious to leave ahead of the storm.

One of Drayton’s passengers, a 61-year-old man discharged from Hilton Head Hospital directly onto the Palmetto Breeze van, said he’d have rather stayed behind if given the choice.

“That’s my home,” the man, who identified himself only as Joe, said. “I’ve been living here 40 years and seen threats of this kind of stuff and haven’t seen nothing happen.”

Many people apparently shared his opinion this week. Throughout Beaufort County, roads were relatively clear Wednesday, with minimal traffic leaving the island even as law enforcement implemented lane reversals on U.S. 278 at 3 p.m.

As the van pulled up to the airport, where Joe would board another bus to Jasper County, he said he’d be shocked if he returned to damage and destruction.

“I keep my faith in God, I really, really do,” he said. “This ain’t nothing. This is a walk in the park.”

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 8:51 AM with the headline "Hurricane turns Palmetto Breeze into shuttle to safety for 100 Beaufort County residents."