Sunday, Sep. 07, 2008

Hanna damage minimal in S.C.

Hanna heads north; Hurricane Ike gains strength in Atlantic

Town-by-town damage report

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If you slept in on Saturday morning, you might have missed it.

Tropical Storm Hanna blew ashore in South Carolina in the early morning hours Saturday, downing trees, flooding roads and causing scattered power outages — but overall doing very little damage.

Significant beach erosion was reported at Garden City/Surfside Beach, south of Myrtle Beach.

And Cherry Grove, north of Myrtle Beach, saw flooding.

But just hours after daybreak, the drone of leaf blowers drowned out the calls of seagulls as workers at Myrtle Beach hotels cleaned pathways and brought chairs back to the shoreline.

The National Hurricane Center said Hanna made landfall at 3:20 a.m. Saturday at the S.C.-N.C. border.

Once Hanna left the Carolinas, tropical storm watches or warnings were issued all the way to Massachusetts and included Chesapeake Bay, Long Island, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Washington, D.C., had torrential rain around noon. At least 2,000 people spent the night in shelters, and almost 100,000 customers along the East Coast had no power at midday.

There were no reports of deaths or injuries in the U.S. attributed to Hanna, which was blamed for disastrous flooding and more than 100 deaths in Haiti.

The storm is expected to move out into the Atlantic by this afternoon.

The Carolinas had braced for the worst Friday, but woke up to basically clear skies and a relatively easy cleanup Saturday.

Some flood-prone streets closed. In all, about 1,500 people in North Carolina and 650 in South Carolina sought cover in emergency shelters along the coast. At the height of the storm, more than 60,000 customers, most of them in North Carolina, were without power.

But by early Saturday morning, people were heading back to their homes, and disaster planners were shutting down operations. Officials in both states said they expected customers still lacking electricity would get it back by the end of the day.

Heavy rains were reported along the coast and Pee Dee areas of South Carolina.

A small pocket in Marion County got 10 inches of rain. Based on radar estimates, some areas of inland Horry and Marion got 5-8 inches, and just that tiny spot got 10 inches or more. Ten families were evacuated overnight to Marion High School in downtown Marion. Those families had returned to their homes by morning.

The only major outage occurred when lightning struck a Progress Energy feeder, leaving 550 customers in Florence without power.

Although Hanna came aground near Myrtle Beach, the storm’s path brushed the state’s central coastline.

In Charleston, crews were out at daybreak Saturday to assess damage, but all they found was flashing traffic lights and scattered tree limbs.

“There was some flooding yesterday, but most of that has receded,” said Barbara Vaughn, spokeswoman for the city of Charleston. “There are a few cases where there was some standing water.”

The heavy rains forced the closing of several shellfish areas along the coast.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control said shellfish areas in Georgetown and Charleston counties have been closed to harvesting because of potential contamination from storm-water runoff.

The beds will remain closed until water testing shows bacteria levels are safe.

By the time it reached the coast, the storm’s top sustained winds had dropped to about 60 mph from nearly 70 mph while the storm was over water.

Gov. Mark Sanford, who had planned to meet with officials in Georgetown and Horry counties, canceled the trip when it became clear that damage was minimal. He lauded emergency planners for their work and invited people to the shore for what was forecast to be a sunny, if breezy, remainder of the weekend.

“Above all else we’re all very thankful that damage along the coast was minimal, and that’s obviously very good news,” Sanford said. “Equally good news is that it looks like it’s going to be a great weekend on the Grand Strand. So as we’re standing down from the storm, I want everyone to know that our beaches are indeed open for business, and we hope to see you there.”

Jason Webb, 24, hit the beach at Myrtle Beach first thing in the morning and said he was glad he wasn’t going to lose much time outside for his vacation from Hendersonville, N.C.

“When the power went out and the winds kicked up and the rain was coming sideways, I figured there was no way we were going to get out today,” said Webb, who was helping his 5-year-old daughter build sand castles.

Staff writer Joey Holleman, The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News and the Associated Press contributed.