Goose Creek mobile home park residents describe tornado damage

Several mobile homes were damaged and residents injured after a reported tornado touched down in the Strawberry mobile home park in Goose Creek Saturday night.

The tornado was part of severe weather that moved through the Lowcountry, bringing wind, rain and hail, according to the National Weather Service.

Reports of damage in Berkeley County started coming in around 8:30 p.m. At 8:40 p.m. there were reports of a tornado touchdown on Renee Circle at the mobile home park, near Highway 52 and Old Highway 52.

Ed Barrow II, who lives in the mobile home park, said it looked like the tornado came down Old Route 52 across the back of the trailer park. He saw 6 to 9 trailers that were heavily damaged and at least 2 were damaged.

A few minutes later, there was a report of another tornado at Action Auto Sales, 3223 South Live Oak Drive. Authorities said there were no injuries there, and moderate damage, but there was a boat in the road near the business.

Soon after the reported touchdown in the mobile home park, people came to the mobile home park to check on their relatives.

Alex Strickland, 135 Dale Drive, has lived in a single-wide there for about three years with his wife Stephanie Strickland and their son James Strickland, age 10, and the family dog, a Pomeranian named Andy.

Stephanie Strickland said her mother had called her from Cross and suggested the family pack a bag and come up there because the weather was getting bad. She was in the bedroom trying to pack an overnight bag and her husband was in the front of the home.

"All I heard was 'shoosh,''' she said. She was trying to reach the bathroom to take shelter. "I didn't even make it into the tub," she said.

Alex was in the living room at the front of the trailer. "It took the floor from underneath me. I was holding on for dear life," he said, "onto anything I could get ahold of."

He fell through the floor, losing a shoe in the process, and ended up in the backyard. Debris came falling in on him when he went through the floor, and he had cuts and scratches on his legs and a cut on bridge of his nose.

James said the family dog wasn't hurt. "It's like God put a force field around him," James said.

Tornadoes also were reportedly seen at Folly Beach and Yonges Island, the weather service said.

Motorists also reported a tree across Interstate 26 near mile marker 194.

The Lowcountry Chapter of the American Red Cross was preparing early Sunday morning to open an emergency shelter at the Goose Creek Recreation Center on Highway 52 near the police department, according to Louise Welch, the chapter's executive director. Up to 200 people are expected to use the shelter. It will open once cots and blankets can get set up, Welch said.

The Red Cross was at the mobile home park offering food and drink to residents and was working with the county to arrange transportation to the rec center.