Well, it took Hurricane Dorian forever to get to Beaufort, and when it finally did, yes, Beaufort got very lucky.
How long was it? A week leading up to the arrival of Hurricane Dorian in the Lowcountry?
Seemed like a month. Or two.
We gasped and panicked as we watched the huge category 5 storm utterly destroy the Bahamas as it stalled out over the islands. And, then it slowly approached Florida.
At a snails pace; at one mile per hour.
And we waited, and waited.
The memes were out in full force. Some likened the storm to a slow wobbly drunk. Some said it would get to Florida sometime near Halloween, then the Lowcountry by Thanksgiving. Everyone wondered where Jim Cantore was at. Some rumors flew about just as much as the Spanish moss did, saying he was in Bluffton, or on Tybee Island in Georgia. He was at neither.
And we waited, and waited.
The evacuation orders came. And few evacuated. It seemed more people were worried abut eating their hurricane snacks than they were about the storm.
Many said it would be worse than when Hurricane Matthew cut his way through Beaufort in 2016.
Dorian was a category 5 storm. Then it was a category 3. Then it was a 2. Then it was upgraded to a 3 yet again as it approached the Beaufort area, with its center some 85 miles offshore.
And, we waited, and waited.
Then it started coming around on Wednesday morning. Morning turned to night. Then it kept up on Thursday morning before he finally went away and left the Lowcountry alone, allowing it to return to the quiet and peaceful place that it always is.
All-in-all, Beaufort got lucky. Beaufort got very lucky.
With very little structure damage reported, most of Dorian’s fury was devoted to upending and snapping trees and downing power lines. Limbs were everywhere, and debris is still coating the Beaufort ground like the snowfall did in January of 2018.
There was very little flooding with the approximately 3 inches of rain that Dorian brought to Beaufort, but the main problem was with the winds.
All-in-all, Dorian left around 25,000 without power in Beaufort County by Thursday morning, and the number was cut down to around 11,000 still experiencing power loss on Thursday afternoon, after the worst of the storm passed by.
It will take several days to clean up around the area. Just enough time, possibly, for the next storm to be on our radar, and then we might have to do it all over again.
Yes, hurricanes are a part of the Lowcountry life we all experience here in our little slice of paradise. But, don’t let Dorian’s lackluster effects on Beaufort make you complacent. Hurricanes are very dangerous and just because this one didn’t do us much harm, does not mean that the next one won’t either.
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