Possible tornado hits Berkeley CountyBy Nita Birmingham (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The Post and Courier 
Mic Smith Sharon Huffman carries her dog, Ruffs, out of the rubble of her destroyed trailer at the Strawberry Mobile Home Park late Saturday evening. She was not injured, but she lost a bird during the possible tornado. Photo GalleryStorm Damage Several mobile homes were damaged and residents injured after a reported tornado touched down in the Strawberry Mobile Home Park in Pimlico on Saturday night.
Five people were injured and more than a dozen mobile homes damaged when a tornado reportedly touched down in the Strawberry Mobile Home Park in the Pimlico community between Moncks Corner and Goose Creek Saturday night. The tornado was spawned by severe weather that moved through the Lowcountry, bringing wind, rain and hail, according to the National Weather Service. Captain Ted Bouthiller with the Pimlico Fire Department said five people at the mobile home park had minor injuries, and two of them were taken to Trident Medical Center for treatment. Damage reports started coming in at the Berkeley County Sheriff’s office 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. The tornado appeared to skip over Highway 52 and land in the mobile home park, according to Captain Ted Bouthiller with the Pimlico Fire Department. He said there are about 50 mobile homes in the park. Two of those had extensive damage, six had moderate damage, and six had slight damage, he said. Bouthiller said some of the homes with minor damage included those with windows blown out. A few minutes after the storm hit the mobile home park, 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. Tornadoes also were reportedly spotted at Folly Beach and Yonges Island, the weather service said. Motorists also reported a tree across Interstate 26 near mile marker 194. Soon after the reported touchdown in the mobile home park, people came to check on their relatives Alex Strickland, 135 Dale Lane, has lived in a single-wide there for about three years with his wife Stephanie and their son James, age 10, and the family dog, a 1-year-old Pomeranian named Andy. Stephanie Strickland had just come home from church. She 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 fell in on him when he went through the floor, and he had cuts and scratches on his legs and a cut on the bridge of his nose. James huddled by the door under a blanket. He was glad the family dog wasn’t hurt. “It’s like God put a force field around him,” James said. Ed Barrow II lives at 123 Dale Lane, said his home was spared, but that in addition to the trailers that were damaged, “I know that the rest are knocked off their blocks.” He and his girlfriend and her son had just returned home from dinner when the tornado hit. “All we felt was a little jiggle,” he said. “The trailer wobbled a little bit. That was it.” His girlfriend went outside and told him to come out with a flashlight. “It just hit and ran through,” he said. “It’s a mess back there. Some homes, it took the siding off and wrapped it around the power lines. It’s going to take a couple of days to get this straightened out. Thomas Rainwater also lives in the mobile home park. His front door was locked. “I had to put my back against it and push against the wall to keep it closed. It was trying to blow the door open,” he said. “I have flowers on my porch that are still right there.” Rainwater said several of his children, ages 5-14, were in the mobile home with him. One of his daughters, a 5-year-old clad in sleeper-jumper pajamas, was clinging to Rainwater with her arms wrapped tightly around him. Margie Harrell, Rainwater’s mother, lives at 135 Renee Circle with her dog, Bella. “It like to have scared her to death,” she said. She saw on the TV that rough weather was coming, and then the cable went out. She turned off the computer in the bedroom and was in the process of turning off and unplugging all the electrical appliances when the storm hit. “I just laid down on the floor between the love seat and the couch and covered myself with a pillow,” she said. “It blew the air conditioners out. It blew them all out of the living room, dining room, and my bedroom. It was just a big gush of wind.” Then a tree fell and came through the living room. “It blew my shed to a thousand pieces. I stayed on the floor until it was over. It didn’t last no time.” Harrell is familiar with tornadoes because she’s from Oklahoma, but this is her first time living through one. She planned to stay with her son Saturday night. Berkeley County’s Mass Casualty Response Team brought a full-sized bus to the park around 9:30 p.m. to give residents shelter until the American Red Cross arrived. The area was searched and North Charleston brought a cadaver dog to check, but there were no fatalities, Bouthiller said. While authorities checked the mobile home park, relatives and friends waited at a nearby gas station. Jeanie Edwards’ brother Ricky Randolph lives in the trailer park. He wasn’t home when the storm hit, she said, and she was trying to get down there to see how he was doing. “My brother, he works hard,” she said. “He don’t have a lot.” Her boyfriend, Victor Sizemore, said Randolph had been in the back of a Berkeley County Sheriff’s patrol car because he wanted to check on his home and they wouldn’t let him. “He said he was headed home, and he didn’t have a home. I don’t know,” Sizemore said. After the storm, about 50 or 60 people, residents and people who came to check on friends and loved ones, were standing outside the manager’s mobile home. Around 10 p.m. the manager, who was identified as Betty Mizzell, asked everybody to gather around and said the Red Cross was on the way. “Whatever it takes, you will be taken care of,” Mizzell said. The Lowcountry Chapter of the American Red Cross was preparing early Sunday morning to open an emergency shelter that could serve up to 200 people at the Goose Creek Community Center on Highway 52 near the police department, according to Louise Welch, the chapter’s executive director. Mercedes Bruce, shelter manager, said around 12:30 a.m. Sunday that they were expecting a bus with about 10 people. She was waiting for health services to come out in case people need medication. Goose Creek police officers were helping set up green cots in the gymnasium. 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 center. |
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Comments
This article has 17 comment(s)
Posted by MotoryachtSoCo on March 16, 2008 at 3:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"A" tree across I-26? Jezzz try several large trees that held up traffic in both directions for more than 2 hours! I mean at standstill turn the car off and wait.
Posted by moonpie on March 16, 2008 at 7:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I can tell you I was on the west side of this cell and it was fast and furious for sure! Some hail first, horizontal rain and extreme wind next. Prayers go out to these people. That place is a mess!
Posted by moonpie on March 16, 2008 at 7:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)
By the way...After 2 hrs of non stop news, my family huddeled in a closet for 20 minutes, and that was all the damage? From the way the news hyped it up you would have thought it was "the day after"
Posted by archdude on March 16, 2008 at 8:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
moonpie
That is the problem with these pseudo warnings that come out from the "doppler indicated". The net result is crying wolf, and when it counts people will be too casual and not pay attention.
I come from the midwest where we had tornadoes frequently--my parents just last month had another out building and barn damaged by one and the field irrigator was mangled. You don't call out a warning because as one TV weather person (not a true meteorologist) said last night "the storm has a history of producing so the NWS is putting out a warning in anticipation even though the storm is still 1/2 hour away". That is not a WARNING...that is a watch.
Watch = conditions favorable
Warning = one on ground or spotted
doppler indicated = most likely a joke because winds swirl frequently in thunder storm cells.
This is the fault of the NWS who needs to calm down and stop trying to be purveyors of doom and gloom. Yes, there have been injuries in the past from not having enough notice, but there can be many more when people start ignoring the false warnings.
Posted by faelady on March 16, 2008 at 8:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)
You know what, I would rather get a "false" warning than no warning at all! When we do not have tornado sirens (like we had in Michigan), the news has to be the prime place for the warnings. They are not being the "purveyors of doom and gloom", they are trying to ensure that the community is watching what is going on around them and trying to ensure the people of our communities are as safe as possible!
When we had the warning of severe weather a few weeks ago, our office was one that closed down - we're on the 4th floor of an office building and my boss would rather err on the side of caution. Yes, it ended up being for nothing, but the alternative was not worth risking our safety.
If the news had not put a warning out and something severe had truly happened then everyone would be screaming about how there was no warning and where was the news with the warnings!
I would rather have a hundred "cry wolf"s and avoid having tons of people hurt when one does come around. Weather is unfortunately very unpredictable and tornados are not like hurricanes, where we can track them over a period of time. They come up out of nowhere and with the weather that was being seen yesterday and the tornados and hail that were seen in the west before the cells hit here, I think the news was totally justified in putting out the warnings they did! If it had been your family that had the tornado hit your home, would you be sitting here complaining that the news was "scaring" the community? I don't think so.
Posted by Hutch on March 16, 2008 at 9:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Through it all, God showed His loving kindness.
Posted by archdude on March 16, 2008 at 9:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
faeladey
THE NEWS DOES NOT PUT OUT THE WARNINGS...it is the NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE. Heck , the newscasters are not even REAL meteorologists.
Posted by MotoryachtSoCo on March 16, 2008 at 10:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
archdude and moonpie
You are so right about the hype. While stuck on I-26 for 2 1/2 hours a major source of entertainment was the idiots on channel 2 wcbd. We listened to the insane play by play as the storms crossed the low country on 103.
Beyond their bumbling and ridiculously repetitive "storm safety facts" "29 times" we began to count how many times they felt it necessary to remind us that the picture that we were not seeing was from "the Live Storm Team 2 Vipir Radar".
Too Funny
More thoughts on the Vipir Radar at http://cedarposts.blogspot.com
Posted by DanniD on March 16, 2008 at 10:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Everyone is making fun of the news, but a possible tornado DID hit down in the trailer park, and caused a lot of damage. Just look at the pictures above. The news did the best job that they could, and was only trying to ensure people were well informed about the storm. Better safe than sorry.
Posted by drdeon on March 16, 2008 at 10:41 a.m. (Suggest removal)
the way in which tornadoes find trailer parks is simply uncanny!
Posted by mac0cm4 on March 16, 2008 at 12:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I felt safe in knowing that the trailer parks near me were at least a mile or so away. I think we had 15 minutes of rain and wind and then....nothing.
If you had a scanner or radio you coulda listened to the Berkeley County dispatch center and first responders freak out on the radio. That's plain language dispatching for you - no time for any information to get out because everyone's babbling like truckers on the dispatch channel.
Posted by mnbvcxz on March 16, 2008 at 1:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
live 5 pumped it for ratings
Posted by JohnS on March 16, 2008 at 5:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sorry about the bird.
Posted by BobH1962 on March 16, 2008 at 6:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)
These people suffered a horrible loss. Then came the onlookers, clogging up the road the moring after, parking their cars of other people's property, driving through neighborhoods just to get to see what happened. Parking and standing on the roadside with their cameras saying over and over "those poor people". Instead of gawking at someone else's loss, go down there, go to the Red Cross tent and ask if there is anything you can do to help. Offer to give a couple of dollars out of your wallet, you have it these people have nothing. Be considerate of other people's property, don't park your car in other people's yards and driveways and walk down the road just to look at what happened. Stop driving through other neighborhoods looking for where the damage is. No one was killed and that was the most important thing to remember from this terrible tragedy.
Posted by MsBehavin on March 16, 2008 at 10:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)
BobH - Thank you for a very good post...you're absolutely right.
And folks, remember that donations to the Red Cross are always needed and very much appreciated. You never know when tragedy might strike in your own neighborhood.
Posted by Girleygirl on March 17, 2008 at 10:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
SO very true Bob- this is not the zoo.
Posted by commonsence on March 17, 2008 at 10:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I was in Columbia when these storms passed through. What I don't get is why there was 5 miles of stand still traffic on westbound I26 at 11:30 on Sunday morning. They were clearing debris with heavy machinery. I thought these storms passed by in the early morning hours. While there were plenty of trees down, you would think that 26 would have been cleared long before noon the next day. Glad I was going eastbound...