Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Residents return after fleeing Floyd by Jim Dav e n p o r t Associated Press Myrtle Beach—Anxious and sometimes impatient, thousands of people who fled Hurricane Floyd streamed back to South Carolina's coast Thursday to find that most damage from the blustery storm was minimal. They lined up as early as 6 a.m. along U.S. 501, wait ing for Gov. Jim Hodges to lift his evacuation order. “I just hate it. I know my house is fine,” an impa tient Tedd Capp said. Local residents have been down this road before. As with hurricanes Fran and Bertha in 1996, Bonnie last year and Dennis earlier this year, this tourist town was again spared a direct hit. Floyd turned away at the last minute, instead making landfall at about 3 a.m. near Wilmington, N.C. Its winds were diminished to 110 mph — a Category 2 storm instead of the near Category 5 monster with 155 mph winds it had been just a day earlier. By midmoming, with sunny, blue skies, Hodges gave the all-clear, and Interstate 26 turned into a one way rush back to the coast. Heeding the criticism he took as backups snarled the highway Tuesday after his mandatory evacuation in advance of the storm, the gov ernor quickly moved to ensure that all four lanes of the highway could be used by evacuees heading home. In many cases, they came home to darkened houses and flooded neighborhoods. At one point, util ities said almost 340,000 customers were without pow er as winds gusted to 80 mph in Charleston and 71 mph in Myrtle B^ach. By 5 p.m. Thursday, an estimated 141,000 still did not have electricity, the utilities said. The National Weather Service said as much as 16 inches of rain fell in the Myrtle Beach area all day Wednesday and Thursday morning while 46,000 peo ple huddled in emergency shelters and thousands more were in hotels as far away as Tennessee. About 4 inches fell in Charleston. Water was 3 feet deep on U.S. 501 heading into Myrtle Beach, and some stores and motels were flooded. From the air, dozens of low-ly ing streets and small patches of U.S. 17, the main north south route from Little River to Charleston, were cov ered with brown water. The flooding gave way to more wind damage the further south you went. Jim Cook took out his red kayak and paddled in front of his Myrtle Beach apartment three blocks from the beach. At midnight Wednesday, Cook said, “Water came up like madness.” By Thursday morning, he had 3 inches of water on his carpet and 3 feet in the parking lot. The flooding also kept Capp and many oth ers from rushing back to their neighborhoods. “This is going to convince people not to evacuate the next time,” he said as traffic piled up on the highway. More flooding could come. The Waccamaw River near Conway, filled with runoff from Floyd, is expected to crest at nearly 17 feet next week, well over the record 13.4 feet. Still, “compared to what it could have been, (damage is) very light,” said Wes Blanchard, director of Berkeley County’s Emergency Operations Center. Preliminary estimates from the Insurance Infor mation Institute were that insured losses in the state could reach at least $25 million. By late Thursday, the state’s major insurance companies reported pro cessing a total of 3,000 to 4,000 claims at an average of $5,000 each, said Allison Wight, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina Insurance News Service. At North Myrtle Beach, the Cherry Grove Pier was split in two. Charleston County emergency officials said damage to buildings there may have topped $10 million, still far less than the nearly $6 billion attrib uted to Hurricane Hugo that slammed into the state 10 years ago. County Building Director Carl $immons said trees fell on the roofs of about 30 homes. Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., who watched Hugo ravage much of his city, was happy to tick off just a few cases of damage this time —- mostly downed trees and power lines, parts of a building that fell onto two trucks downtown and an abandoned house that collapsed. Some boats were tossed around and damaged at the Patriots Point marina. “Wfe were so lucky. The stomi suige came when tides were low,” Riley said. Some storefronts were damaged in Georgetown. Scattered cases of roof damage could be seen from the air, especially from Charleston south to Hilton Head Island. Many counties reported trees down. Hodges briefed President Clinton Thursday on the aftermath. Clinton had declared a state of emergency in the Car olinas on Tuesday as the stomi approached to help speed federal disaster relief. Thursday’s reversal of lanes on 1-26 on went smoothly, and Riley, who had been sharply critical Tuesday, was more conciliatory toward Hodges, a fellow Democrat.“I couldn’t have been more frus trated. I have never been more angry,” Riley said. “The reversing lanes are going very well today. I congratu late the governor for making that happen.” Though the highway moved swiftly out of Columbia, there still were some traffic jams around the capital city, rekindling motorists’ frustrations. The state’s ed ucational radio network took tire unusual step of putting the callers on air, letting some vent, while others just wanted alternate routes back home. Gates shares the wealth by Rebecca Cook Associated Press Seattle —Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates and his wife are donating SI billion over the next 20 years to finance college scholarships for minority stu dents. - « “It is critical to America’s future that we draw from the full range of talent and ability to develop the next generation of leaders,” Gates said in a statement issued before a news conference at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The gift — being made through an nual investments of S50 million a year — is the coupje’s laigest single philan thropic contribution and one of the Laigest ever, matching a $ 1 billion commitment by CNN founder Ted Turner to the Unit ed Nations.The Gates Millennium schol arship program, which will begin next fall, will provide assistance to 1,000 stu dents each year. The Gateses’goal is “to provide financial assistance to high-achiev ing minority students who are in se vere financial need and otherwise would be excluded from higher education.” The program will be, administered by the United Negro College Fund with support and participation by the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and American Indian College Fund. World Briefs ■ Train hits bus BbjING — This week, a train smashed in to a school bus in the western city of Yib in in Sichuan province, killing six people and injuring 27, a local official said Thurs day. The train collided with the school bus Tuesday at an unguarded crossing in Yibin, about 1,000 miles southwest of Beijing, said a staff member who gave only his surname, Liao. Apart from the driver, all 34 of the pas sengers on the bus were middle school chil dren, he said. ■ Guerrillas kill lawyer INDIA — Suspected guerrillas shot and killed a lawmaker after storming his home in southern India on Wednesday, police said. ; The six gunmen, believed to be from an outlawed leftist group, also shot and killed two aimed guards who tried to stop them from entering the home of P. Pur shottam Rao in Sirpur, 160 miles north of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh state. Rao, who served in the last Indian parliament, was a nominee of the govern ing regional Telugu Desam Party in the current parliamentary elections. Police blamed the outlawed People’s War Group, a Maoist rebel group, for the attack. The group has threatened to dis rupt parliamentary elections under way in the state. w&ame \ _ USC Student Media ...we won’t be silent. ----- \