Outrage after Clemson holds football game but cancels classes following Helene damage in SC

No school on Monday, but the Clemson football game went on as planned amid hundreds of people in the surrounding area without power due to Tropical Storm Helene.

That didn’t sit too well with some people, even if it was homecoming.

Allison Wells, a novelist who lives a mile from campus and graduated from Clemson in 2002, said she’s been trapped in her neighborhood without power for four days and the idea that tens of thousands of people came into town and used up resources was “abysmal.”

“Football runs the university,” she said.

She said it would have been better for the university to postpone the game and to have invited the town in as they did for the pizza party after Clemson won its first ACC championship.

The school opened Littlejohn Coliseum on Sunday.

“CYA, afterthought,” she said.

Clemson Mayor Robert Halfacre said in an email, “Do I love that we had tens of thousands of people descending on our city as we were trying to assess and repair the damage from the storm? No, of course not. However, a lot goes behind those decisions and I’m not going to pretend to understand what the university had to consider.”

He said, though, once the crisis is over, a conversation about how the decision was made should be held to determine if something different should have been done.

“Today, and in the weeks and months to come, my energy will be focused on what can be done to repair our neighborhoods and provide for residents in need,” he said.

In his weekly Sunday teleconference, Dabo Swinney was asked by The State if there was ever a point where he thought Saturday’s game was going to be postponed or canceled.

“It never came up to me,” Swinney said. “Maybe it came up with the administration, but nobody ever brought anything to me. My job’s to get the team ready, so that’s what we focused on.”

Clemson University spokesman Joe Gailbraith told the Post & Courier officials evaluated the impacts and whether they could safely host the game.

“After the storm, we assessed lines to our substation were still active, but two main breakers at the Duke substation had tripped. We notified the substation manager and power was restored shortly,” Gailbraith said.

In 2015 when Columbia was hard hit by flooding from Hurricane Joaquin, the Louisiana State-South Carolina game was moved to Baton Rouge.

Gov. Henry McMaster was asked about Clemson playing football on Saturday.

“That is a good question for Clemson,” he said.

Clemson resumed classes and re-opened campus in full Tuesday.

Chapel Fowler contributed reporting.

This story was originally published September 30, 2024 at 1:26 PM.