COASTAL OBSERVER

Working in a coastal community, emergency management officials and first responders in Georgetown County know how to prepare for a hurricane.

But a snowstorm?

The preparations are basically the same according to Brandon Ellis, the county’s emergency management director.

“We can take our core planning principles and implement them for any hazard we face, whether it’s a hurricane, a winter storm like we had in this case, or a cyber incident like we had in 2021,” Ellis said. “Or even a planned event like a bass tournament.”

Last week’s snowstorm created a lot of travel headaches, Ellis added, but the other factors that hurricanes bring, like power outages and evacuations, were not in play.

“The beauty of it was, we were lucky it was just snow,” he said. “Had it been an ice storm, we would have drastically different impacts because we would have had power outages and debris missions.”

Safe traveling for his firefighters and paramedics was near the top of the worry list for Midway Fire Rescue Chief Brent McClellan.

“We didn’t want them out in a snowstorm,” McClellan said. “I didn’t want them on the road during the height of the storm.”

Crew members who were supposed to report to work on Jan. 22 were asked to come in on Jan. 21 before the snowfall got heavy. 

Ellis said the city and county fire departments, and the sheriff’s office, did the same thing.

Since none of Midway’s  fire trucks or ambulances is equipped with four-wheel drive, McClellan said he wanted as many pickup trucks as possible at the three stations in case firefighters and paramedics had to use them when they were dispatched.

“We don’t have anything for that kind of weather,” he said.

However, McClellan said the ambulances did “very well” responding to a limited number of calls. 

“We didn’t have any close calls,” he added.

Similar to a hurricane, the snowstorm had a “cone of uncertainty,” Ellis said. The forecast started at a half-inch of snow on Jan. 20, and then increased to 2-3 inches by the morning of Jan. 21 and 4-6 inches by that evening.

“It seemed like every time I looked at a forecast I was seeing more and more and more,” Ellis added.

“This one was different,” McClellan said. “This was a different kind of storm.”

The state Department of Transportation arrived in the county on Jan. 19 to cover major roads in brine, which is supposed to keep snow and ice from sticking.

“We knew it was coming so they started some preventative measures. I think that’s why the bridges fared so well,” Ellis said. “If we lost the bridges to ice, transportation would have halted all together.”

DOT also brought snowplows from all over the state.

Georgetown County doesn’t own any snowplows, but it does have motor graders, which are like tractors with blades on the front. They are used to smooth gravel roads and dirt roads or to remove sand from roads after a storm surge.

“It’s more of a tractor-based machine instead of a dump truck,” Ellis said. “In this situation we take that resource and reapply it.”

Ellis knows of only a few serious traffic accidents that required EMS to respond. There were a lot of vehicles sliding off the road, but drivers and passengers were not hurt.

“We’re in the South,”he said. “We’re not using to driving on ice and snow.”

Ellis was happy that drivers listened to the emergency management officials and first responders in the county and the city and stayed off the roads.

“Our primary goal – our primary mission – is to keep everyone safe,” he said. “That’s what we were trying to do.”