‘We don’t get disasters like this’: 5 dead in Hampton Co., 1 in Colleton from tornado
A tornado touched down in Hampton County early Monday, killing five people and leaving another dead in Colleton County, according to S.C. Emergency Management director Kim Stenson.
The tornado was part of a statewide weather event that destroyed homes in several counties throughout the state, Stenson said in a Monday evening news conference. Downed trees and power lines made travel difficult on I-95 and I-26, and S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster said the “destruction is enormous” across the state.
The homes of 200 to 250 people in Hampton County were damaged or destroyed in the storm, Hampton County Emergency Management director Susanne Peeples said.
S.C. Rep. Shedron Williams, who represents Hampton County, was talking to families Monday morning along one stretch of Lena Expressway where the storm had torn apart about five houses side by side.
“We don’t get disasters like this,” he told The Island Packet. “God is real. This is a time when the Lowcountry should pull resources even closer together.”
Williams said the county will receive aid from the state.
Crews with S.C. Department of Natural Resources are working to cut trees and clear roads for emergency personnel, an agency spokesman said.
Steve Rowley, the science and operations officer for the National Weather Service in Charleston, said he was watching the radar as the storm plowed over the Lowcountry.
“It was on the ground and it was doing damage, and it was doing that for quite a while,” he said.
He said the weather service issued the first tornado warning around 6 a.m. as the storm moved through Hampton County along to Colleton, Dorchester and Berkeley counties.
He called the storm’s scope “very unusual.”
“For this part of the country, we don’t see this sort of thing,” he said.
The weather service was assembling teams to survey the damage, Rowley said. More information about the strength of the tornado and area damaged was not immediately available.
Video posted on Facebook by a resident of the Nixville community showed houses destroyed by the storm.
Traffic, downed trees, I-95 issues
The S.C. Department of Transportation is moving extra crews into Hampton County to help repair damaged roads, director Christy Hall said in a Monday evening news conference.
Around 7 a.m. a downed tree blocked lanes of Ribaut Road between Hermitage Road and Depot Road, according to a news release from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office. The tree had been cleared and lanes reopened by late morning.
In Colleton County, an overturned tractor trailer and downed trees on I-95 stopped traffic from 8:30 a.m. until just before 11 a.m., according to S.C. Highway Patrol trooper Matt Southern.
Southbound traffic was being detoured until around 11 a.m.
Around 9 a.m., a car traveling north on I-95 in Jasper County hit a large puddle of water and went off the highway, according to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office.
The car flipped, the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post, but the driver was not injured.
At Lowcountry Regional Airport in Walterboro, about 20 planes were damaged by the storm, an employee there said. One set of hangers was destroyed in the storm, several others were badly damaged, and a Cessna Citation III jet parked on the tarmac sustained damage, the employee said.
Palmetto Electric Cooperative reported just over 6,500 customers without power across Beaufort, Jasper and Hampton counties just before 8:30 a.m. Dominion reported 9,903 had lost power in Beaufort County and 42 in Jasper County. By late afternoon, around 1,100 people were still without power in Hampton County.
How to help
Neighboring Jasper County Sheriff’s Office deputies are putting together volunteers to help around Hampton County on Tuesday, according to a Facebook post from the sheriff’s office.
“Hampton County has suffered extreme devastation from the tornado. We are organizing a group of Deputies and Residents to help tomorrow. There is a tremendous need for chain saws, wood chippers, generators, gasoline, water, food and clothes,” the post said.
The group will meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office. Anyone interested in helping should have experience in storm cleanup, bring tools for tree clearing and have personal safety equipment, the post says.
If you’d like to help, you can respond to the sheriff’s office Facebook post.
This story was originally published April 13, 2020 at 8:02 AM.
