Rallying together: Daufuskie residents unite to recover from Hurricane Helene damage
Last Thursday morning began like any other for Aaron Crosby, a pastor and volunteer firefighter on Daufuskie Island, with quiet time over a cup of coffee. But before 7:30 a.m., he abandoned his peaceful routine, leaving his steaming mug on the counter, to respond to a call from the firehouse.
At 7:03 a.m., an EF-0 tornado, which has a three second gust of wind between 65-85 mph, touched down on Daufuskie Island near Driftwood Cottage Lane in Melrose. The twister spun northward across the island, covering over 6.5 miles with a path width of 150 yards, and lifted north of Big House Plantation Road near Myrtle Island on the mainland, according to the National Weather Service.
As the twister touched down, Dr. John Thompson, a Melrose resident, heard a sound that he could only compare to that of a jet engine revving outside their window. Wind blew the back door open, sending place mats from the back porch table all the way to the front door and lamps to the floor. The wind was so loud, he said, that it popped his ears and masked the sound of limbs snapping and trees falling just feet away in their side yard. The twister came and went in 30 seconds, Thompson said.
Crosby and other firefighters from the Daufuskie Island Fire District responded to a localized “twisted jumbled mess,” when they started to assess the tornado’s path. Some trees were snapped off up high while others were completely uprooted. About seven fallen trees blocked road access, Crosby said.
But the Thursday morning tornado was just a forerunner of what was to come with Hurricane Helene blowing through the island less than 24 hours later, said Crosby.
Freddie Grant Jr., a fifth-generation islander, heard a transformer explode down the road from his house early Friday morning. When he peaked his head outside, he saw sparks in the air and heard a second, even louder explosion. Living through decades-worth of hurricanes, including Hurricane Matthew in 2016, Grant knew to take cover in his bathroom.
Around 3 a.m. Friday, a large tree fell just feet in front of the Daufuskie Island Fire department’s doors.
“We knew then that we were going to have our hands full,” fire Chief Shane Comparetto said.
Firefighters reported to the fire house before daybreak to receive assignments. Crews were sent out to different sections of the island to assess damages and start a long day of clean up, breaking down one fallen tree to the next.
“In times like this, the crew doesn’t think about their own houses first. They don’t even know if their own house is okay or not, but still they help other people first. I’m honored to work with people like that,” Comparetto said.
The sunrise shed light on what had taken place overnight across the five-mile island: hundreds of fallen trees that blocked more than half of the island’s roads. The fire department’s main priority was to clear a direct route to the Haig Point landing in case of emergency.
Power woes
Just offshore, sixteen of the transmission poles standing in the water and marsh between Daufuskie and the main land had been damaged during the storm, according to Paul Fischer, a Dominion Energy spokesperson.
The energy company’s first priority was to repair the main feeder lines to help restore power, then to work on restoration efforts on the island with downed trees and broken poles. There are two main power lines to Daufuskie, Fischer said. The lines that are primarily overhead are energized from the Palmetto Bluff area. The other main feeder runs underground.
Throughout the weekend and into the early week, Dominion brought out additional equipment, trucks and excavating equipment by barge to help with on-island restoration.
As of Tuesday afternoon, according to Fischer, power was restored for the majority of Dominion’s customers on the island, and the island was being powered by “an alternate underground feed.” The energy company will continue making repairs on the water-bound poles at a later date, he said.
The repairs to the damaged transmission poles in the water will mechanically be the same as on-land repairs, Fischer said, but they will have to access the poles by water which poses access constraints. Fischer was not able to provide a timeline on when those repairs would be completed.
A resilient island
Daufuskie islanders were spared from the severe devastation seen throughout Helene’s path across the rest of the state. As of Oct. 2, at least 35 people had died in South Carolina during Hurricane Helene, a death toll even higher than Hurricane Hugo. Across the region, the death toll has risen to at least 130, according to the Associated Press.
But the island still felt hurricane side effects like days-long power and water outages.
Ron Angle, the owner of Daufuskie Carts, a cart rental business that operates out of Melrose Landing, said that island was in worse shape over the weekend as gasoline levels slowly depleted on the island, tree limbs still hung across power lines and some islanders could not retrieve water from their personal wells.
Since then, a barge brought over gasoline to the island, a water distribution center has been set up at the First Union African Baptist Church and many power lines on the island have been restored.
By Monday afternoon, residents waved hello to each other while driving along cleared roads in their golf carts. Locals and tourists gathered at the Old Daufuskie Crab Company. Residents shared how grateful they were for the little things like a warm shower. The consistent hum of generators started to quiet in communities across the island that were slowly starting to receive power.
“What we had was bad, but relative to what it could have been, oh my God, we are blessed,” said Thompson as he looked over his yard littered with fallen branches and trees.
“To live on an island without a bridge takes a certain kind of mindset,” said Crosby. “It takes a pioneering spirit. We don’t have access to everything at our fingertips, so you have to be willing to go at it alone, to do your own thing.” But even in the pioneering days, when trouble came, individual families circled the wagons and came together, he said.
The islanders rallied together since Friday to support each other through the aftermath of Helene. People with generators offered those without them a glass of water and a place to shower. Others who fled the island offered up their home for others to sleep in. On Monday, the community joined together for a picnic at the Francis Jones Park to eat the thawing food before it went bad.
On Sunday morning, Crosby arrived at the First Union African Baptist Church before sunrise. The small white building was still without power, so he opened the doors to let in the early morning breeze. About half of his congregation came to the service, singing hymns without the help of a keyboard.
“In the midst of challenges and difficulties, there are these little gift opportunities that allow you to experience what community is meant to be,” Crosby said.
This story was originally published October 2, 2024 at 1:25 PM.
