Horry County, S.C., Emergency Management Director Randy Webster urged a crowd gathered for hurricane preparedness tips at the Base Recreation Center Wednesday night to leave before disaster strikes.
On July 1, The Weather Channel reported that a forecast from Colorado State University predicted a total of 15 named storms for the Atlantic this season with six hurricanes, two of them considered major as a Category 3 or higher.
On May 27, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration predicted a 70 percent chance of having 10-16 named storms in 2016. Four to eight of those could become hurricanes with winds of 74 mph or higher, including one to four major storms. But NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center cautioned the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season, which officially runs from June 1 through Nov. 30, has been hard to forecast with climate uncertainty.
Steve Pfaff, forecaster for the National Weather Service in Wilmington, said that it can be difficult to predict how a hurricane season will play out. Warm water feeds hurricanes, and water temperatures are slightly above average, he said, but not enough to signal a significant impact on the season. Peak times for hurricanes are in August and September, when water in the Atlantic basin is the warmest.
The state has so far seen an uneventful season, but some of the most damaging hurricanes have occurred in seasons with only a handful of storms, Pfaff said.
The Horry County Emergency Management Department hosted a "Know Your Zone" forum at the Gabreski Lane center to inform citizens and visitors of the state’s new hurricane evacuation zones and the Grand Strand’s vulnerability to storm surge.
For those who live in potential storm surge zones, labeled A, B and C, the message was clear: when the governor orders your zone to evacuate, leave.
"Understand which direction the storm is going in," Webster told the crowd at the center. "Don’t go where the storm is going to go, leave before you have to and it’s all good."
Storm surge, or the amount of water that floods onshore when the ocean is swollen by a tropical storm, is what determines an area’s evacuation, Webster said.
Folks living in Zone A, defined as properties between the coastline and U.S. 17 Business, will be asked to leave first in mandatory evacuations. Those living in Zone B, between U.S. 17 Business and U.S. 17 Bypass, are the second must vulnerable to a surge, followed by Zone C, which incorporates land west of U.S. 17 Bypass and mostly east of S.C. 31 and parts east of U.S. 701.
But a mandatory evacuation, if ordered, won’t be quick.
Clicking onto a slide Webster said he knew would alarm people, he told the group that an evacuation for folks only living in Zone A could take up to 15 hours. An evacuation of Zones A and B could take up to 19 hours. And an evacuation for all three zones is estimated at a more dismal 27 hours per motorist to complete with the new use of lane reversals.
Using mandatory escape routes, folks living in certain zones will be redirected to other roads like the southbound lanes of U.S. 501, which will be used to accommodate northbound traffic, in a new effort to trim evacuation time.
Webster noted that the estimated evacuation time is worse than it was for folks living in the Grand Strand 10 years ago because of the area’s recent population boom and no new roads to accommodate the extra cars. He encouraged the crowd to stay ahead of the storms by keeping up with media alerts issued when a depression out in the Atlantic churns into a local threat.
Pfaff said that on average, the eye of a hurricane passes within 50 miles of the Grand Strand once every 8 years. The last time this happened was in 2004, when Hurricane Charley reached Myrtle Beach after expending much of its energy in the Caribbean Sea and in Florida.
"There’s a lot more people in the area, a lot more critical factors, and we haven’t been tested yet," Pfaff said.
However, it has been even longer since a severe storm—category 3 or higher—has hit the area. One hits or sweeps by in a near pass every 23 years, Pfaff said.
The area was significantly impacted by Hurricane Fran, a category 3 storm that pounded the South Carolina coast with wind and rain before landing in Cape Fear, N.C., in 1996. However, the last significant tropical storm to actually hit the coast was Hurricane Hugo – one of the strongest hurricanes in South Carolina’s history, which hit between Charleston and Georgetown in 1989 and killed 27 people in the Palmetto State before it left.
"A lot of people haven’t been here to experience a major hurricane, so they’re basing their decision to evacuate or prepare their house on something they’ve never been through," Pfaff said.
Hurricane forecasts, additionally, are not always easy to translate into on-the-ground reality where residents live, as differences in coastal protection and the land’s ability to absorb water makes rainfall affect neighborhoods differently. "If we’re getting 15 inches of rain—well that means something different to everyone. In some places it might be 8 feet of water. In some places it might be a half inch of water," Pfaff said.
Webster said that the crescent shape of Myrtle Beach’s coastline can leave the area more prone to flooding.
He encouraged folks to evacuate when they’re told to adding that the county’s 16 shelters can only accommodate up to 13,000 people, but demands for shelter may far surpass that number. And none of the shelters will be able to assist folks in need of constant or continuous medical treatment, like dialysis patients.
Public safety personnel also likely won’t be able to respond to emergencies when sustainable wind gusts reach 60 mph.
"It’s a very difficult time when we have to go down this path," Webster said.
He offered several tips to help folks, who have to stay, survive the storm and for those who are able to flee to safety, he reminded them they will need some form of identification to get back home. Residents will have to pass through checkpoints that will require an ID like a driver’s license or a utility bill to show where they live to be able to return home when the threat is lifted.
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