Irmo Okra Strut festival, other Columbia events alter their schedules due to Helene

It’s fall in Columbia, which frequently means two things — a wide variety of festivals and events populating our weekends, and tropical storms threatening to roll through and ruin their plans.

Hurricane Helene , which is threatening the Midlands with possible tornadoes and flooding as it moves toward a Thursday evening landfall along the Gulf Coast of Florida, is already dumping rain on the area. And while conditions are expected to clear by Friday evening, that doesn’t mean local events scheduled for this weekend are out of the woods.

Jam-y New Orleans roots rock band Cowboy Mouth, a frequent visitor to Columbia, canceled its scheduled Friday evening appearance at Irmo’s annual Okra Strut festival due to travel issues caused by the storm.

Later Thursday, festival organizers announced that all Okra Strut programming for Friday would be canceled, but the event is set to continue Saturday with the annual parade and another concert headlined by cover band Absolute Queen unaffected.

Other cancellations and schedule changes due to the storm include:

• The Richland Library closed all locations at 5:30 p.m. Thursday and won’t reopen them until noon on Friday.
  
  “All library events and meeting room reservations will be canceled,” a release states.
• The S.C. State Museum announced it will close Friday to “ensure the safety of our visitors and staff.”
• The South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center canceled its 45th Anniversary Celebration at Senate’s End, scheduled for Thursday night.
  
  “Due to road closures across Columbia and continued threat of rain through the evening, we’re unfortunately forced to cancel the event for this evening,” Appleseed said in a release.
• The Columbia Museum of Art closed at 5 p.m. Thursday and is set to reopen at noon Friday.

We will continue to monitor local events scheduled for this weekend and post storm-related updates as they occur. If you know of a cancellation, contact us at jlawrence@thestate.com or statenews@thestate.com.