They stayed for Matthew. Will the ‘Daufuskie 100’ leave for Irma?

James Bays had a seizure during the last big storm.

He opted to ride out October 2016’s Hurricane Matthew on Daufuskie Island with about a hundred other folks who became known as the “Daufuskie 100.” Their decision to stay prompted pleas from then-S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley.

“If you don’t evacuate now, you will likely be stranded,” she said during a Friday, Oct. 7, 2016, press conference, directing her comments at the stubborn islanders as Matthew crept toward the Palmetto State. “Daufuskie, it will be underwater.”

“We’re trying to get them to leave,” Haley later said. “They’re just not leaving.”

The Category 2 storm snapped trees and flooded parts of Daufuskie, and caused, according to a Beaufort County post-storm assessment, more than $1.6 Million in property damage. The fresh memory of that destruction has islanders taking Hurricane Irma more seriously, if still pondering whether to stay or go. And while no evacuation order has been issued, some people are moving inland.

“If (Irma) is a Category 2 or above, we’re definitely going to leave,” Bays said Thursday morning as he boarded a ferry to get supplies — in case he decides to stay.

Bays, a six-year resident Daufuskie Island Council member, said he’d make a decision Friday afternoon about whether to evacuate ahead of Irma, which forecasters with the U.S. National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center say, as of Thursday morning, could impact Beaufort County as a Category 3 storm.

Bays, who has epilepsy, said his seizure was brought on by the stress of a constantly-ringing cell phone as family and friends called after Haley’s news conference and asked him to leave. At that point, though, it was too late — the ferry was no longer running, he said. He added that his roommate had a suspected cardiac episode as the storm neared.

“It’s actually kind of scary (this time),” Bays said, when asked about the vibe ahead of Matthew compared to Irma. “Matthew was scary, don’t get me wrong,” he said, but the TV images of Irma’s destructiveness in the Caribbean — especially on the island of Barbuda — are frightening.

Roger Pinckney, who’s lived on Daufuskie for more than 20 years — and who weathered Matthew in the cracker house he built himself — is most concerned about the potential storm surge from Irma.

“With all these pine trees, if they go down and there’s a surge, there’ll be no transportation,” he said. “Just bobbing logs, nowhere to even walk.”

He kept his kids out of school Thursday so they could help him “lash down” the house. He didn’t even considering evacuating before Matthew, he said. But this time around it’s a consideration. Still, he takes some comfort in the fact that Daufuskie sits up higher than neighboring Hilton Head Island, and that a storm surge has never touched the 250-year-old black cherry tree that sits on his property.

“My impression is people are taking this hurricane much more seriously,” Daufuskie resident and council member Deborah Smith said. “Many people have plans to leave, including folks who stayed last time.”

Smith evacuated for Matthew and, on Thursday morning, and, as she spoke with The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, she was boarding a barge to leave again. She’d rented a van to transport about 20 cats — some with special needs — and three dogs north and west, to Georgia. She mentioned that the Haig Point Equestrian Center was already making plans to evacuate its horses.

Adam Martin, director of sales and marketing for Haig Point, said the center was looking for barges to get the horses off the island. He also said members of the community were filling out “check-out cards” when they evacuate, something new Haig Point is doing to assist first responders who need to know who is and isn’t on the island.

“I don’t get a sense that people are afraid,” Martin said. “They’re just being very alert and aggressive at this time.”

The Daufuskie Island Ferry continues to operate on its regular schedule at this time, spokesperson Judy Barth said Thursday morning.

“And we will continue to run until it is no longer safe to,” Barth said. “Even through the post-evacuation” — assuming one is ordered — “until the winds reach about 50 miles per hour.”

The ferry service, contracted by the county, is in constant communication with U.S. Coast Guard, Barth said, and wants to make sure anyone who wants off Daufuskie has a ride.

When asked why Daufuskie islanders are taking Irma more seriously, Smith said memories of last October’s storm were fresh.

“Now we know what a hurricane can do — Matthew was devastating to the island,” she said.

“And of course, there’s been so much publicity about Irma, and the magnitude of it,” she added.

“It really could be cataclysmic here.”

Moments later the barge arrived, and she left.

Projects reporter Kasia Kovacs contributed to this story.

This story was originally published September 7, 2017 at 12:21 PM with the headline "They stayed for Matthew. Will the ‘Daufuskie 100’ leave for Irma?."