“I was watching TV. I couldn’t keep my eyes off it,” Haley recalled Thursday during an exclusive interview with The State newspaper.
“I remember Michael saying, ‘You need to get some rest,’ and I turned off the TV, but I didn’t sleep all night.”
Thinking the rain and wind outside her window was nothing compared with the battering along the coast, Haley said she was hoping the days of planning, emergency conference calls, news conferences and appeals to residents to evacuate would keep people safe.
“All I could keep thinking about was: How many people didn’t hear us? Did they all get out? What else could we have done? ... That was the hardest time for me, the waiting.”
In South Carolina, Hurricane Matthew initially left more than 800,000 people without power, closed nearly 500 roads and bridges, caused nearly two dozen dams to breach, sent more than 6,000 people to shelters and claimed at least five lives.
The cost of the storm has yet to be quantified. Days after Matthew left the state, the storm’s impact is ongoing as the heavy rainfall courses southeast to the Atlantic Ocean, swelling river banks in the Pee Dee and flooding communities.
On Thursday, Haley said the state is not out of the woods.
But — aside from the storm again exposing the state’s fragile dam system, and complaints from coastal residents who were stopped as they attempted to return home — Haley and her team have received high marks for their management of the hurricane.
Two former governors, Republican David Beasley and Democrat Jim Hodges, sang Haley’s praises for moving quickly to evacuate the state’s coastal communities.
And other state leaders say the state’s response has been swift and effective.
“I mean, we couldn't ask for any better,” said state Sen. Kent Williams, D-Marion, referring to Haley’s leadership and the help his district has received from federal, state and local agencies.
Williams represents the town of Nichols, where severe flooding forced 150 residents to flee to town hall for higher ground, where they later were rescued.
Visiting a shelter in Mullins on Friday, Williams said, “The community appreciates their responding quickly to the needs of the victims here.”
Managing crisis
Though Matthew is the first hurricane in Haley’s tenure, she has had to respond to several other crises.
She oversaw the state’s response to winter storms that struck the state in early 2014. Last year, unprecedented rainfall burst dams and caused historic flooding across the state, uprooting communities in the Midlands and elsewhere.
Between the storms, Haley’s leadership was tested by other crises that were man-made and deadly.
In the most recent of those tragedies, a teenage gunman went to Townville Elementary School on Sept. 28 and opened fire, fatally wounding 6-year-old Jacob Hall, and wounding a teacher and another student.
That night, Haley flew to Greenville to meet with Jacob’s family at a hospital. He died Oct. 1.
According to her official schedule, Haley made numerous calls to the town’s sheriff, fire chief, schools superintendent and teachers. She said she was worried about the community, “worried about the teacher, worried about the firefighters” who responded.
“They were not doing well,” she said. “When tragedies or a crisis hit, your goal is to just wrap your arms around them and let them know that you’re there. You can’t always fix everything, but you just want them to know that you’re there.”
Haley’s calls to Townville continued early into the next week, when Hurricane Matthew emerged as a potential threat to the state.
The ‘cone of uncertainty’
With input from state emergency planners, Haley announced plans to evacuate the state’s coastal communities on Tuesday, Oct. 4, as Matthew was battering Haiti more than 1,000 miles and four days away.
Haley said she did not “want to call it too early.” But, then, the whole state appeared in the “cone of uncertainty” — the cone-shaped trajectory that showed the potential path of the storm.
Planning the state’s response 48 hours in advance, Haley said the goal was to get out ahead of the storm. “We can always pull back, but you can’t get that time back if you wait too long,” she said.
“I would have been thrilled if it had not hit and was ready to take any criticism, because that would have been a good problem.”
‘From sadness to worry’
On Wednesday, Oct. 5, Haley led a news conference in Columbia on the hurricane, then headed to Jacob Hall’s super-hero-themed funeral.
The day “went from sadness to worry,” she said, adding, by then, she felt like she knew Jacob.
“He had such a sweet face. Going and seeing him in that casket, it was just brutal. You couldn’t think about anything else.
“It was an emotional day,” Haley said. “You’re going to something you should never go to — the funeral of a child.”
By mid-afternoon, Haley was back in Columbia at the state’s emergency operations center, waiting for the first big part of her hurricane plan to unfold: the evacuation of the state’s coastal communities.
The first step was reversing eastbound lanes on Interstate 26 to allow more traffic to flow westbound, away from the coast. Haley watched on a television as law enforcement closed off traffic to the interstate and then reopened lanes to evacuees.
“That was a pit-in-my-stomach moment,” she said, adding that she kept thinking, “How in the world are we going to get half-a-million people out?”
“The fact that we got 350,000 is total credit to all of our law enforcement,” she said. “They could not have been more perfect in the way they made that work.”
Haley briefed reporters a few hours later, still wearing a black dress, accented by a Batman pin, in honor of Jacob Hall.
The news briefing was one of several Haley made as the storm approached, including two a day from Wednesday through Saturday.
Haley said it was important for her to appeal directly to S.C. residents, something she has learned over the course of managing storms.
It is important to “over-communicate” to the public, she added, “because the more information they have, the more they’re going to feel better about their decision to move out.”
Facing questions
Haley has faced questions about the storm, including her decision not to reverse lanes on I-26 again to help residents return to their coastal homes.
During a news conference, Haley said her priority was getting people safely out of the storm’s way, not getting them home “in record time.” She asked for patience and for evacuees to “count your blessings because you have your life.”
A communication breakdown among Beaufort County officials led to residents being turned away as they tried to get back to their island homes after Haley lifted her evacuation order for that county.
Haley said she took her cue to lift the evacuation order from local officials. But returning residents found the bridge providing access to the coastal islands still closed for repair.
Matthew’s rainfall and flooding also exposed, again, weaknesses in the state’s dams. More than 20 breached from the storm, some washing out roadways.
But, on Thursday, Haley said the state avoided the crisis of a year ago, when dams broke and left homeowners suddenly entrapped and engulfed with no warning.
“All the way through, there was communication that we didn’t have last time,” she said.
Moving forward, Haley said the state should consider reclassifying dams so that more of them fall under the hazardous category and receive heightened oversight for a state agency that reports to the Republican governor.
‘You just can’t do enough’
As state officials continue to monitor rivers for flooding, Haley has been surveying the damage.
Flying over the Lowcountry’s barrier islands, Haley said she was stunned by the thousands of downed trees in Beaufort County and the enormous amounts of sand the storm shifted from the beach to the roadways on Edisto Island.
“When we flew over Marion County, it brought me back to (last year’s October) flood because, literally, it looked the same,” she said. “Everything was under water.”
On Friday, Haley surveyed the Pee Dee’s swollen rivers by boat, visiting Nichols and a shelter in Mullins.
State Sen. Williams said Nichols has received everything it has asked for. The state also has offered resources the community did not request, he said.
Haley said she has had repeated calls with Nichols’ mayor, making sure she knows what is needed.
“These are just people that didn’t have much to start with and to lose everything they have, you just can’t do enough (for them).”
Haley praised state and local government employees, agency chiefs and first responders who helped with the hurricane response. Some also lost their homes and had their families evacuated, she said.
“Many of them are in pain, and many of them have their own challenges to go back to, and they’re just not (going back home yet) because they need to do their jobs first,” she said. “We can’t give enough credit to those people.”
Jamie Self: 803-771-8658, @jamiemself
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