Maybank Highway hardest hit by storm

WADMALAW ISLAND — Trees used to surround Vicky and Brent Griffith's home here, but on Monday scarcely a single one remained intact.

The Griffiths' brick ranch house off Maybank Highway was ground zero for the furious storm that blew through the area Sunday. The storm spawned an EF2 tornado, said a National Weather Service preliminary assessment team. It had winds estimated at 120 mph, cut a 12-mile-long path that was a mile wide at Maybank Highway and more than a half mile wide at Bohicket Road.

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Residents on Maybank Highway were picking up the pieces this morning after Sunday's tornado Watch »

"It's ironic because I had just finished working in the yard," Vicky Griffith recalled Monday afternoon, as she, her husband and neighbors tried to clear away the fallen trees that blocked their driveway. "It was a beautiful day, and I had been digging the flower beds."

She was near the back porch around 6:20 p.m. Sunday when she heard a snap and turned to see the first tree fall. She herded her 8-year-old son into an interior bathroom. Her husband followed, hurriedly trying to open windows to prevent the house from imploding.

They emerged later to find a fallen tree that cut straight through Brent Griffith's workshop. Another tree smashed a

2008 Ford F-350 pickup truck with only 900 miles on the odometer that he uses at his contracting job. Most of the windows of their house were blown in, with shards of glass and leaves strewn about the floor.

It could have been worse; the Griffiths nor their immediate neighbors had serious injuries.

The Carolina Lowcountry Chapter of the American Red Cross was visiting affected neighborhoods because fallen trees prevented many residents from driving to an assistance center at a Johns Island fire station.

Louise Welch, regional executive director of the local Red Cross chapter, said Monday afternoon that the organization expected to dole out about $6,000 worth of assistance. They had received reports of five houses with major damage that will require the residents to relocate, four others with significant damage that wouldn't prevent anyone from staying in them and 15 with minor damage such as broken windows.

On Monday, volunteers were dispensing ice and water to those without power. Counselors provided comfort, Welch said.

At the peak of the power outages Sunday, several thousand people were in the dark. By Monday afternoon, almost everyone had electricity back. About 3,000 Berkeley Electric Cooperative customers were affected Sunday, said Micah Ponce, a communications specialist with the utility.

In the approximately two-thirds of the state that South Carolina Electric and Gas Co. serves, about 13,000 people were without power between 10 and 11 a.m. Sunday as the first wave of storms surged through, said Robin Montgomery, southern division public affairs manager with SCE&G. That storm system was less severe but more prolonged than the one that in the evening. About 4,800 Lowcountry customers lost power in all, Montgomery said.

Residents on Maybank Highway spent Sunday night listening to whirring chain saws and seeing the flashing lights from emergency vehicles. By morning, the scent of freshly cut pine made the area smell like a lumber yard.

Almost all of the neighbors on the Griffiths' side of the highway were sawing their way out of similar messes.

Ernest Drawdy, 58, knew staying in his mobile home directly in front of the Griffiths' house could be dangerous. So he got out in a hurry when he heard the storm coming, hunkering down by some concrete steps at his back door. He credits them with saving his life.

Bark and leaves whirled through the air, stinging him. A pine tree gouged a sofa-sized hole in his roof, and a piece of tree bark pierced the metal siding like organic shrapnel. Tree limbs fell around his legs.

Drawdy was unhurt but shaken.

"I thought I was dead," he said.

Sandy Mack was cutting trees at the next house over on Monday. He hunkered down with his wife and son inside their home Sunday night, then was surprised to see the extent of the damage when they finally emerged. He went around to neighbors' houses that night to make sure they were OK.

"I never expected anything like this," said the retired Air Force veteran who works as a Junior ROTC instructor at James Island Charter High School.

His workshop was smashed into a pile of wood and tools 15 to 20 feet from where it used to sit in the backyard. A nearby storage shed was demolished and his Ford pickup flipped on its side. Toppled trees somehow managed to miss his house but littered the yard.

Mack's older brother, George, had his own troubles next door. Trees fell on three vehicles, destroying a Ford Bronco, a Ford pickup and a Lincoln sedan.

Authorities also blamed the winds for damaging two Cessna airplanes at the general aviation section of Charleston International Airport.

"It appears that a sudden gust of wind flipped up one of the planes and flipped it on top of the other one," said Bill New, deputy director of airports for the Charleston County Aviation Authority.

Vicky Griffith, with her yard full of lumber and a house full of leaves, said when it comes to housekeeping, she now has a handy excuse: "I say, 'Pardon the mess, the house looks like a tornado hit it.' "

Bo Petersen contributed to this report. Reach Noah Haglund at 937-5550 or nhaglund@postandcourier.com.