Erik Hayes, director of the Sumter County Emergency Management Office, provided an update on what Hurricane Florence could possibly bring to Sumter during Sumter County Council’s meeting on Tuesday, and Gary Mixon, Sumter County administrator, said a team of local officials and first responders has been active since Sunday afternoon in preparing for the storm.
There was also a partial activation of the emergency operation center, which is stationed in the emergency management office, on Tuesday in response to the evacuation of coastal counties by Gov. Henry McMaster, Hayes said.
Hurricane Florence’s path is changing, he said, but certainly Sumter will experience some of the storm, he said.
“We ask everybody to prepare for it,” he said.
Hurricane tracking
Hurricane Florence is currently a Category 4, which is classified as a major hurricane, he said.
Though it looks like the storm will make landfall somewhere at the North and South Carolina border on Friday, Hayes said the path can still change.
He said experts are highly confident Hurricane Florence is headed for the east coast but that there could be some variation in the storm’s path when it reaches land.
Once Hurricane Florence makes landfall, there is low confidence of where it will go based on the information experts have at this time, Hayes said.
Predicted winds and rainfall
The tropical storm-force winds, shown as a yellow bubble on the National Hurricane Center’s hurricane tracking model, are expected to stretch 175 miles at its largest point from the center of the hurricane outward, Hayes said Tuesday evening.
A tropical storm usually has sustained winds between 39 and 73 miles per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center. A hurricane can have between 74 to 110 mph.
If the track of the hurricane does change from what was predicted at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Hayes said it is possible for storm-force winds to reach Sumter about 8 a.m. on Thursday as Hurricane Florence reaches the coast.
Experts were expecting 55 mph winds in the Midlands and Pee Dee area based on the storm’s path at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, he said.
That speed would be enough to take down weak trees, which could knock down power lines, he said.
Hayes said Sumter is also expected to receive about 2 to 4 inches — or possibly 6 inches — of rain during a seven-day period with most rain falling from Thursday to Sunday.
All of this information is from the National Hurricane Center, he said.
Evacuation Travel from The Coast
U.S. 378 and S.C. 261, which both come through Sumter, are evacuation routes from the coast, Hayes said. There is no lane reversal on those roads, he said.
As far as Hayes has seen, from monitoring the state Department of Transportation and local cameras, there has been some increase in traffic on 378 but not much.
There have been no major incidents except for a traffic collision reported by the Sumter Police Department at Broad Street and Alice Drive, which is normally a busy intersection, he said.
Hayes urges residents to go to trusted sources such as National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service and local media for up-to-date information about the storm to avoid false predictions of the Hurricane Florence’s path.
--- By Item Staff Reporter Adrienne Sarvis