Considerable cloudiness. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 76F. Winds NE at 10 to 15 mph..
Considerable cloudiness. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 64F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.
Waves violently crash against the Cherry Grove Pier near North Myrtle Beach Friday. Richard Carnes/Staff
Vince Waelti, a storm chaser from Wisconsin, records the choppy surf on the Isle of Palms as Hurricane Ian approached the South Carolina coast on Friday, Sep. 30, 2022. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff
A Charleston police vehicle blocks King Street at the intersection with Huger Street. Flooding prompted the city to close several streets Friday morning in Charleston. Matthew Fortner/Staff
A tree fell in McClellanville near the house of Judith Keane as Hurricane Ian approached the South Carolina coast on Friday, Sep. 30, 2022. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff
A map shows the forecasted path for Ian, which hit the South Carolina coast as a Category 1 hurricane but dissipated to a post-tropical cyclone by 5 p.m., according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center.
Waves from Hurricane Ian pound Folly Pier September 30, 2022. Brad Nettles/Staff
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Waves violently crash against the Cherry Grove Pier near North Myrtle Beach Friday. Richard Carnes/Staff
A map shows the forecasted path for Ian, which hit the South Carolina coast as a Category 1 hurricane but dissipated to a post-tropical cyclone by 5 p.m., according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center.
The Holy City and the counties that congregate around it were spared the worst of Hurricane Ian, which came ashore just to its north in Georgetown midday Sept. 30.
Despite the hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall that battered coastal South Carolina throughout the day, the grave storm surge predicted the previous day did not overwhelm the peninsula or its neighbors. Nonetheless, knee-deep waters inundated what were once roads.
But it could have been worse.
“We are very blessed, I believe, for the damage we’ve received versus what was projected,” said County Emergency Management Department Director Joe Coates.
On Oct. 1, the county will compile a report of the damage done by the storm, Coates said. That report will be sent to the state level, Coates said. If enough homes have been damaged, a request could be made for a FEMA declaration to help those who’ve been impacted by the storm, Coates said.
As for tonight, the county’s message to its residents is crystal clear: stay home.
As the rain eased over the tri-county area around 3 p.m., Ian’s mess started to emerge.
Construction fencing lay in the Park Circle roundabout, ripped from its posts, a block from a stop sign lying face down. Trees came to rest on utility lines, and at nearby Quarterman Park, the swollen duck pond consumed everything around it — street signs, duck food dispensers and part of Spruill Avenue.
Across North Charleston, damage from the storm appeared limited, but widespread. Cars plastered with leaves crunched over twigs on roads littered with debris. One such street was Riverbluff Parkway, which was cordoned off with crime scene tape to prevent motorists from driving across a downed power line.
The city of North Charleston is soliciting the public’s help in reporting damage. With more than 42,000 housing units, it’s difficult for inspectors to be aware of all damage caused in North Charleston by Ian, the city said in a release.
Residents are to report water intrusion damage and any other damage online at www.northcharleston.org/damage.
As of 5 p.m., the hurricane watches and warning that had been in effect for all of South Carolina's coast for much of the last few days had subsided. A tropical storm warning remained only until 8 p.m. as Ian weakened to a post-tropical cyclone.
Ian still packed winds spends near 60 mph, which could still be felt up to 205 miles from its center, located 45 miles northeast of Florence, according to the National Hurricane Center's latest update.
The cyclone was forecast to move farther inland overnight, and dissipate as it moved across central North Carolina or Virginia by Oct. 1.
By midday, rainfall had reached about 8 inches near the coast, according to Ron Morales, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Charleston. But rainfall continue pelting the Lowcountry for several more hours.
Over 5 inches fell near downtown Charleston's medical district, turning streets into knee-deep rivers. Nearly 65 roads were closed on the peninsula, according to the city's GPS maps.
At the corner of Ashley Avenue and Bennett Street, four College of Charleston students decided to break out their rubber raft. They paddled into the intersection, where they briefly ran aground, then continued on down Bennett.
"We all know hurricanes can be bad, so we hoped for the best, and this one doesn't seem that bad," said one of the paddlers, Matt Amowitz. Added another, Matthew Wallace, "We have something like this happen every few years, so why not go out in a boat?"
Wind gusts reaching 85 mph were observed around 1:30 p.m. at Fort Sumter and 73 mph at Folly Beach around 10 a.m., per the local weather service.
Around noon, most area first responders including Charleston County Emergency Medical Services and Charleston police stopped responding to emergency calls, citing conditions unsafe for personnel. They resumed around 3 p.m. after the worst of the storm had passed
“All right y’all, let’s saddle up,” said Charleston Police Lt. James Byrne.
Back in his patrol car, Charleston Police Sgt. Sean Flaherty scrolled through his computer, looking at what came in while officers were grounded. Most of them were alarm calls — common during a storm when high winds can knock open doors and windows, he said.
Flaherty cruised down King Street and around the Battery. Dozens of people were outside, taking advantage of a break from the rain.
Flooding in the city seemed worse than it did with Hurricane Irma, Flaherty thought, though noted that fewer trees had fallen in this storm. The officer said he hadn’t heard of any calls for reported injuries.
More than 200,000 residents throughout the state were without power as of 3 p.m., according to a database that tracks power outages nationally. The number of outages was fluctuating throughout the day.
Near Colonial Lake in downtown Charleston, Ian downed power lines, shredded a fence at Moultrie Playground’s tennis complex and toppled two trees on Broad Street.
As Ian’s rain bands spun away, Kieran Holloway stopped on Broad Street, pulled out a saw and began cutting branches of one of the downed trees. He lives in Columbia, but his girlfriend came to the city for a work conference. He wanted to make sure she was OK during the storm, so he drove to Charleston with tools and supplies. Earlier, he said he helped motorists in three cars stranded by Ian’s floodwaters.
“People don’t know how deep the water is. A lot of them are college kids who don’t understand that you can’t get the engine wet and think, 'Oh I can make it,'" Holloway said. “I know it’s safe now and I know what I’m doing, and besides, shouldn’t everyone be doing this?”
Much of the Wagener Terrace area of downtown Charleston was without power starting at 2:30 p.m.
A big culprit is a large oak tree that split in half and took out a power pole and several lines on St. Margaret Street near Wagener Avenue. Surrounding streets were flooded, enticing 4-year-old Addison Bishop. With her hip waders, the girl tugged her father, Billy, through the floodwaters covering 10th Avenue.
"She wants to find the big puddles so..." Billy Bishop said as he was pulled along.
The wind and rain was also attractive to Biscuit, a Giant Schnoodle, as he walked with owners David and Nikki Schnell along 10th. They have a backyard their dogs can access and "he was out like seven or eight times" in the storm, David Schnell said.
A pair of SUVs blasted through a flooded section of East Bay Street along the Battery just after the storm passed, the riders laughing as they threw up a vicious spray of water. They wheeled onto South Battery, gunning their engines toward a soggy swath of deeper water only to find a police officer blocking their path. Fun over.
Nearby, people emerged cautiously from their homes to survey the damage around White Point Garden. It mainly consisted of downed limbs, scattered branches and a carpet of sodden leaves.
Several stately homes had been barricaded with giant sandbags, wooden coffers and heavy duty flood barriers, their occupants no doubt mindful of the muddy river that raced into the properties in 2017 after Hurricane Irma’s surge jumped the nearby seawall and came pouring in. This time, the water got about ankle deep and stopped after crawling up the driveway aprons.
Amanda Bailey took it all in with her two daughters in tow. They came from northern Nevada for a mother-daughter weekend and found themselves facing something they never before encountered: a hurricane. They hunkered down in their rental Airbnb and watched in awe as Ian unleashed more rain than they had ever seen at one time.
“It was crazy,” Bailey said. “We live in the desert. We don’t get that much rain in a year.”
Residents of the 200 block of Lakeview Drive in Summerville had to evacuate after falling trees damaged several roofs on the block. No injuries have been reported, according to Thomas McNeal, director of emergency management.
“We’re kind of in the height of the consequences of the storm right now,” McNeal said. “Every few minutes, there’s a new tree down over a roadway or a different intersection that’s flooding.”
In Ladson, a dip of Oxford Road in the College Park Estates neighborhood saw floodwaters that filled a handful of driveways and made it hazardous for some residents to get in and out of their homes.
When Hurricane Hugo hit in 1989, George Thompson, who has lived on the road since the 1970s, had a pontoon boat to ferry his neighbors across the floodwaters submerging Oxford Road in the College Park Estates neighborhood in Ladson.
After seeing the same place flood again during Ian, Thompson stood on his driveway watching disapprovingly as drivers eased their vehicles through the water, which was around 2 feet deep in some places.
His home was on a slightly higher part of the street out of the water's way, but every time a vehicle passes through the flood, he said, it creates wakes that push more water into his neighbors' houses. In the past, some of the homes have had 3 to 4 feet of water in them.
"I've seen cars flood out and float down there," he said.
A crew from South Carolina Department of Transportation battled the wind and flood to put up road closure signs, even as cars kept heading their way.
"I've got to get home," Kenyetta Lee said to a crew member, leaning out the window of her vehicle. She'd waited the storm out from her home farther down Oxford and then ran out to get dinner as the wind and rain died down earlier in the afternoon.
There's another route she can take to her house near College Park Middle School, she said, but the flooding is even worse there.
The crewman urged her "turn around, don't drown" and then left. As Lee sat pondering her next move, a sudden gust of wind blew the road closure signs out of place, one of them falling into Thompson's yard and another sliding into Lee's car and making her yell in surprise.
Exasperated and with no serious damage to the vehicle, she drove around the sign and through the floodwaters.
Beach communities braced before, celebrate after
As high tide arrived just before noon, unusually stout waves spraying plumes of white mist trashed the Isle of Palms’ beach, shoving mounds of dead seagrass up to the dunes. At Station 21, a child’s hot pink plastic boat sat marooned in the brown sea debris.
The island’s long stretch of beach, normally smothered in beach-goers and their colorful towels, bore the assault mostly alone. Few people ventured out as Hurricane Ian’s bands pounded the upscale sea island.
But unlike the wrath of more powerful hurricanes, Ian’s storm surge failed to breech the grassy barrier of sand dunes. Streets around the Isle of Palms remained passable and largely free of significant flood water.
Down a few blocks on Front Beach, the frothing high tide scooped up a half-dozen yellow barrels and dumped them like toys around the beach volleyball net outside the Windjammer.
Nearby, at Breach Inlet, as 2 p.m. approached, bringing Ian’s landfall in South Carolina, stronger wind gusts lashed with ever-harsher cords of pelting rain until it became hard to even stand up. With temperatures in the low 60s, the rain felt like shards of ice on any exposed skin.
All around Mount Pleasant and the sea islands, police were out in force, their bands of blue lights omnipresent as limbs and sometimes small trees fell into the piles of leaf litter strewn along many roads.
When a man stopped in the wind and rain to drag a thin white oak that had toppled across Rifle Range Road, a police officer quickly arrived to help haul it aside, letting what few drivers were out pass safely by.
Cars formed a single file line heading back toward Folly Beach just after 4 p.m., avoiding a flooded Bohemian Bill parking lot with their hazard lights on.
Roads heading in and out of the beach town were open by late afternoon.
On the beach, cars and pedestrians slowly started venturing out of their homes and hotels, though pools of water still blocked portions of East Cooper and East Ashley avenues.
By 4:45 p.m., people slowly began trickling into open Folly Beach bars like Planet Follywood, where patrons stood drinking outside.
Across the street at The Washout, bartender Ernesto Jones turned away two customers who had wandered inside the indoor-outdoor bar after seeing the “open” sign turned on. The restaurant wouldn’t reopen until Oct. 1, Jones said, but the reason for the delay wasn’t due to damage from the hurricane. The bar’s owners had expected worse and it was too late to call in enough employees to work the night shift.
“We actually stayed out here,” Jones said. “Compared to the other hurricanes it wasn’t that bad.”
Conditions on U.S. Highway 17 steadily degraded throughout the morning as high winds threw buckets of rain and the occasional tree branch across the blacktop. Ian would make landfall in Georgetown at 2:05 p.m.
At 10 a.m., cars sought refuge in SM Mart — one of the last gas stations still open on the highway between McClellanville and Georgetown. Vinyl signs advertising Black Cat fireworks twisted in the winds as customers darted inside the business for coffee and snacks.
David Goude smoked a cigarette under an outdoor awning. Baby Ray Wilson, his father-in-law, watched a weather forecast on a television in the store's back room. Water dripped from the ceiling and pooled near the shelves.
Goude, 35, said he lived next door. He and Wilson helped the manager prepare for the hurricane the prior night, securing garbage cans and storing supplies. He'd hunker down at home when it got too bad, keeping an eye on his dogs and chickens.
Uday Patel, the manager, said he'd stay open until the business lost power or he was ordered to evacuate. The former seemed more likely – Wilson reported minutes later a power outage struck nearby North Santee.
Meanwhile, the party was just starting down the road at Buzz's Roost in Georgetown. The sport bar off Front Street opened its doors at 11 a.m., even as rising waters were causing police to tape off the surrounding roads. Owner Trevor Day sipped a stiff drink and cracked jokes with staff. Every few minutes, a flash flood warning blared from one of the televisions above the bar.
The pub was open for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Day said. If staff were willing to work, why not offer refuge for the houseboat owners who docked on nearby Great Pee Dee River, he reasoned.
Day admitted the flooding worried him, though. Front Street always flooded during storms, but rarely did it start so early in the day.
Rigorous waves sent part of the Pawley's Island pier floating away at sea, the local police department posted on social media around 1:30 p.m.
At 2 p.m., a torrent of floodwater from Pawleys Island Creek overran North Causeway Road, cutting off access to the pier.
A failed pump station was causing an alarm to ring throughout the neighborhood as residents stepped out of their houses to watch the scene unfold.
Andy Patrick, a nearby neighbor, said he had never seen the creek so badly flooded.
Forecasts continued moving the storm's path east — at first, putting the Holy City directly in Ian's path, but later, sparing the it some of the worst effects of the storm.
“Which side you’re on directly impacts your experience of a hurricane,” said Meteorologist Brian Haines from the local NWS office. Because Ian is moving east of the Charleston Harbor, the Lowcountry is experiencing rain and wind — “ergo the flash flood warning and hurricane warning” — but not storm surge.
Haines said the NWS office has received reports of power outages, flooded streets and downed trees.
Charleston appeared to dodge a more serious outcome as the National Weather Service downgraded the midday high tide from 9 feet to 7 feet. That difference meant concerns over storm surge, especially along the low battery, were much lower than they were even 24 hours ago. Still, nearly 65 streets were closed in the peninsula due to flooding.
Mayor John Tecklenburg invoked the memories of Matthew and Irma, hurricanes which hit the area in 2016 and 2017 — his first two years in office. Irma brought the worst flooding to the Holy City since Hurricane Hugo’s record 12.5-foot tide in 1989. Irma's tide peaked at 9.9 feet; and Matthew's was just below that at 9.2 feet.
A Charleston police vehicle blocks King Street at the intersection with Huger Street. Flooding prompted the city to close several streets Friday morning in Charleston. Matthew Fortner/Staff
“A nine-foot tide would come over (The Low Battery) like it did for Irma and Matthew.”
The extreme weather and flooding underscores to Tecklenburg the urgency of finishing the Low Battery sea wall, which is still under construction, and going ahead with the proposed $1.1 billion seawall around the peninsula.
“Long term for our city, this problem is not going away," he said.
Charleston City Council unanimously passed three emergency ordinances authorizing the city's mayor to order mass road closures and a curfew, which seems unlikely as the worst has passed.
Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency on Sept. 28. The next day, Charleston County and city officials followed suit, allowing the governments to move more swiftly and access aid, if needed.
No evacuation was ordered, but officials in the tri-county area encouraged those living in low-lying areas to relocate during the storm.
Shelters at Matilda Dunston Elementary School, 1825 Remount Road in North Charleston, and the Charleston County Sheriff's Office, 3841 Leeds Ave., remain open Sept. 30, though no public bus routes will be running to them.
Beginning at 9 a.m. on Oct. 1, buses will take people from shelters back to their original pickup locations. Charleston County offices will resume normal operations on Oct. 3.
President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration covering all of South Carolina's 46 counties on Sept. 29 in anticipation of Ian's arrival.
The move allows the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist in the recovery effort. Federal aid could potentially cover up to 75 percent in some of the costs.
"My message to the people of South Carolina is simple: Please listen to all the warnings and directions from local officials and follow their instructions," the president said at a press conference from the White House around 1:45 p.m. Sept. 30.
During his remarks, Biden said he had spoken with McMaster. The president also spoke of how natural disasters show the best of America, chiefly the nation's tendency to unite in difficult times.
"I spent a lot of time with people in the aftermath of disasters. I have immense gratitude for the first responders and emergency crews who always show up no matter what," Biden said. "In times like these, Americans come together. They put aside politics. They put aside division. We come together to help each other because we know if it were us who just lost our home or a loved one, we hope people would show up to help us."
Meteorologists have repeatedly characterized Hurricane Ian as stubbornly unpredictable. By the morning of Sept. 30, however, forecasters issued warnings for South Carolina with more authority.
Four to 8 inches of rainfall were expected in northeastern South Carolina and possibly 12 inches in certain places on Sept. 30, according to the National Hurricane Center's 2 p.m. update.
A storm surge of up to 4 to 7 feet was forecast from Edisto Beach to Little River Inlet at the North Carolina border. Deeper inundation was expected along the immediate coast near where the storm makes landfall.
Ian is expected to weaken as it moves farther inland. Winds are expected to quickly diminish after sunset Sept. 30, according to the local NWS, and Ian should dissipate over western North Carolina late Oct 1.
Road closures and power outages
Residents awoke the morning of Sept. 30 to a flash flood warning as heavy rain and gusty winds battered the Lowcountry.
Leaves and the occasional tree branch littered roadways, several of which flooded, forcing drivers to zigzag around the peninsula.
Charleston Police Sgt. Sean Flaherty arrived 8 a.m. Sept. 30 to his team’s office in downtown Charleston, ready to begin his 12-hour shift patrolling the central business district around King and Market streets.
Flaherty balanced listening to his radio with monitoring the computerized call log and tuning into the Weather Channel while also keeping his eyes on the road. It was a relatively calm morning. Few residents had ventured out on the streets. The majority of shops and restaurants in the area had closed for the storm, which helped tamper foot traffic, Flaherty said.
“I’m not going to risk it,” Flaherty said after pulling onto North Market Street and noticing it was covered in water.
Vince Waelti, a storm chaser from Wisconsin, records the choppy surf on the Isle of Palms as Hurricane Ian approached the South Carolina coast on Friday, Sep. 30, 2022. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff
He responded to two calls for reported structure fires, though one was a false alarm. One woman called 911 after a water leak caused an outlet in her home to begin smoking. Charleston firefighters responded and worked to identify the leak.
Authorities decided just after noon to ground police officers. Charleston County EMS, and most other area first responders, also suspended its services citing unsafe conditions. A call came over Flaherty’s radio directing him to report back to the team office.
“I feel like we’ve been out there for worse than this, but I don’t know,” he said.
The streets around the City Market were deserted shortly after noon as big gusts rolled through the area, violently shaking trees, rattling shutters and whirling wet leaves into the air. The normally flood-prone Market was largely free of the usual standing water that had been plenty deep enough for kayak rides during past storms.
Up the road, some low-lying areas like the entrance to Union Pier behind the Harris Teeter on East Bay Street were flooded and impassible. Several others remained open, though littered with fallen branches, toppled planters and piles of leaves shaken prematurely from their branches.
Folly Beach saw high waves breaking up on the beach as the storm closed down most of the businesses. One site that perennially stays open during storms is Bert's Market, which goes by the mantra "we never close but we may doze."
Waves from Hurricane Ian pound Folly Pier September 30, 2022. Brad Nettles/Staff
Hazelle Froehlich, who calls herself "the hot bar queen" had 12 hamburgers grilling away and said business from locals has been steady, as about 10 people stood in check lines with beer, chips and other stapes.
The downside of it all, she said, is that the market has no tv, which means those inside are oblivious to how bad the storm is.
Even those who heeded officials' advice to stay home were experiencing Hurricane Ian's effects.
Judith Keane stood outside her McClellanville home at 7:30 a.m. watching a splintered oak tree branch dangle from a power line on Pinckney Road.
A tree fell in McClellanville near the house of Judith Keane as Hurricane Ian approached the South Carolina coast on Friday, Sep. 30, 2022. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff
Keane said she was inside her home, a converted schoolhouse built in 1875, when she heard the loud crack.
The home, miraculously, survived Hurricane Hugo, Keane said, which brought ferocious winds and heavy rains to the small fishing village.
“It gives me a bit of false security — maybe too much security,” she joked.
Firefighters and officers from S.C. Department of Natural Resources huddled nearby. Officer Patrick Clarey from DNR said they mulled pulling the branch loose, but, erring on the side of caution, decided to call Dominion Energy.
Dominion Energy sent 200 additional crew to the Palmetto State Sept. 29 to support customers impacted by the extreme weather, the company stated on social media.
Berkeley Electric Cooperative would also receive support from 200 technicians headed to the state from nearby states, according to spokeswoman Libby Roerig.
The extra crew were sorely needed.
The number of affected customers had been steadily climbing all morning, but dips occurred as crews restored power before the hurricane was expected to hit.
A database that tracks power outages nationally recorded more than 200,000 power outages in South Carolina as of 3 p.m. Sept. 30.
More than 98,000 Dominion Energy customers had lost power as wind speeds increased along the coast.
Spokesman Paul Fischer said crews were continuing to respond to outages, but once wind speeds surpassed 35 mph, however, he said their work would be restricted due to safety concerns.
People should avoid fallen power lines and debris. Dominion Energy stated on its website that crews would work to restore power as long as conditions were safe.
The public information officer for Beaufort County, Chris Ophardt, wrote in a midday update that the Beaufort County Public Works Command Center had received 15 calls reporting power lines or trees down. Like other first responders, the county's sheriff's deputies suspended services during the worst of the wind, resuming normal operations around 2 p.m. Officials responded to nearly 40 calls, mostly about downed trees and power lines.
In downtown Summerville, the usual bumper-to-bumper traffic was absent as residents stayed inside and businesses closed up shop until the storm past. The town closed its municipal offices and Dorchester County officials reported trees partially blocking Highway 17-A South near Summers Drive and on Comingtee Range off Trolley Road. More trees were reported down in Ridgeville, Reevesville and St. George.
A pine tree battered by gusts from outer bands of Hurricane Ian fell onto a moving car on Piney Grove Road in Irmo on Sept. 29, just west of Columbia. The driver crashed into a another tree and became trapped, before being rescued by the Irmo Fire District and emergency crews and taken to the hospital.
As of 3 p.m., road closures in the City of Charleston included:
The city of North Charleston closed Industrial Avenue, Northwoods Boulevard, Peppercorn Lane and Midland Park Road due to flooding.
Photos from Charleston and the Carolina coast as Hurricane Ian crawls closer.
Tony Bartelme, Parker Milner, Tom Gorwin, Jocelyn Grzeszczak, Jennifer Hawes, Maddy Quon, Thad Moore, Caitlin Byrd, Glenn Smith, Isabelle Altman, Rickey Dennis, Kelly Jean Kelly, Schuyler Kropf and Steve Garrison contributed to this report from Charleston.
Reach Ali Rockett at 843-901-1708. Follow her on Twitter @AliRockettPC.
Ali Rockett covers crime and public safety in the Charleston area. She previously worked at papers in Virginia and her home state of North Carolina.
Steve Garrison covers breaking news and public safety. He's a native of Chicago who previously covered courts and crime in Wisconsin, New Mexico and Indiana. He studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Missouri.
Ema Schumer covers public safety and the criminal justice system in Charleston County.
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