Hilton Head residents return home, survey damage

Luanna Morris got the crying out of the way early.

Then she got to work.

When she came back to her Sea Pines home Tuesday, what she saw tore at her heart. As she and husband Jack pulled up , they found the yard strewn with debris. Several large trees were down, including one on the home’s garage and another across their backyard pool. One blocked the driveway.

“It's so sad to see Sea Pines looking like this. It was devastating to see your home look like this,” said Luana Morris, who has lived on the island since the 1970s and in her Baynard Cove Road home for five years.

But the house — which has been featured in various architectural magazines and previously owned by the late John Curry, a well known Hilton Head leader — was still intact.

Luanna Morris grabbed her cell phone, jogged down the street and began sending her neighbors pictures of their homes.

Meanwhile, the couple’s son, Jack Morris III, cranked up a chainsaw and tackled the fallen tree blocking the driveway.

The family did all this while working through the logistics of cleaning up without power or running water, a challenge faced by thousands of others across Hilton Head.

But figuring out how to do it suddenly didn’t seem so daunting. Not after anxiously waiting in a Greenville hotel room for days, unsure of what awaited them at home.

“The hardest part of being away is the unknown,” she said. “It just helps to know what is going on.”

The couple say they’re grateful for the quick work by Sea Pines to clear the community’s major arteries.

And they’re grateful their home is whole.

“Once we knew the house was good inside, it’s just outside that can be cleaned up,” Luanna Morris said.

And that’s work the family has already started.

This story was originally published October 11, 2016 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Hilton Head residents return home, survey damage."