As residents along the East coast in Horry County prepared for Hurricane Idalia, Coastal Carolina University students set up by their local pools for the day off.
The tropical storm hit Horry County late on Aug. 30, prompting CCU to close and issue a storm warning after 2 p.m. Some students, including sophomore Carter Mathis, had a casual attitude towards the hurricane even before it hit.
“I feel like tomorrow is going to be a little bad,” Mathis said. “Maybe high winds and rain, but other than that it’s just another storm. I hope the power goes so we can all like, hurricane party and class gets cancelled. That would be sick.”
Freshman Joey Kight said he’s never experienced a hurricane before and said he wasn’t worried.
“I mostly stayed in my room,” Kight said. “Just watching YouTube and relaxing.”
According to Carissa Madeiros, emergency management director, most of the concerns she received regarding the hurricane came from parents.
“It’s the out-of-state parents that were concerned about what’s happening when there’s a hurricane off our coast.” Medeiros said. “I anticipate getting phone calls from families that are from out-of-state, just because they are not familiar with the impacts of a hurricane. So, of course they would be worried for their student.”
According to Chief Meteorologist at ABC 15 Ed Piotrowski, Idalia, compared to other tropical storms and hurricanes in the past seemed to have a weaker impact than it’s predecessors.
“No doubt about it, Ian was a worse hit for many areas, Isais before that, Dorian, Matthew and Florence, all bigger impacts than what we’ve had with Idalia,” Piotrowski said.
While the damage to campus was minimal, it did however affect some in areas in Horry County. According to both Piotrowski and Medeiros, there was a tornado in Cherry Grove that caused some damage, and another in Pawleys Island.
“And both of those did do some damage to homes,” Piotrowski said. ”But that’s been the extent of it – a couple of trees knocked down and of course a few homes damaged by tornadoes.”
Although hurricane Idalia didn’t receive much concern from students, several previous hurricanes and tropical storms have caused major damage in the past. For more information about the Univeristy’s hurricane and severe storm procedures, students and families can visit https://www.coastal.edu/chantsafe/severeweather/.
