Fallen trees leave Columbia scrambling to clear roads, homes in aftermath of hurricane

Erin Baldwin and her 14-year-old son, Silas, saw a mess when they looked down the street from their Forest Acres home Friday morning.

Lying across the road was a huge tree that had fallen overnight as Hurricane Helene whipped through the Columbia-area. Their neighbors’ yard was strewn with limbs and pine boughs that fell in the powerful, storm-driven winds.

“People with trees down are going to have problems for a while,’’ Baldwin said as she and Silas, a freshman at A.C. Flora High School, picked up the pine boughs from their neighbors’ yard. Their own property escaped tree damage, so they felt the need to help their friends.

Across Columbia and the state, some of the biggest casualties of Hurricane Helene were trees, from majestic oaks on the University of South Carolina campus to tall pines in Forest Acres just a few miles from downtown.

Many trees blocked roads Friday morning, including major in-town streets, like Heyward in Shandon, Pickens near USC and Trenholm near Clemson Avenue. Greene Street, a busy two-laned road between the USC campus and Five Points, was blocked for hours Friday after a massive hardwood fell. The tree hit several cars.

USC sophomore Ella McGarrigan and her friend Blacksher Coker were among the students out early Friday to view the toppled hardwood on Greene. It was a reminder of the night they had just experienced.

“I was up all night, I was absolutely so scared when we lost power,’’ said McGarrigan, who is from Greensboro, N.C.

Other trees fell on houses. Among those was a tree that crashed onto a house on Heyward Street. Another tree fell on a home at the corner of Eastshore and Overcreek roads in Forest Acres. The big hardwood covered the carport.

Bob Little, a neighbor, said the tree fell on the home about mid-morning Friday after surviving high winds during the early morning hours. His street also was blocked by another tree. And power lines lay across his yard on Eastshore Drive.

“We’re always worried about things like this,’’ Little said. “These are older trees.’’

The city of Columbia said its public works division had received about 200 calls Friday concerning fallen trees and branches. That wasn’t as bad as the canopy damage that occurred during 1989’s Hurricane Hugo, but Helene left a mark, Public Works Director Robert Anderson said.

Anderson and assistant city manager Clint Shealy said the city is clearing trees from roads, but some of the work can’t be done until Dominion Energy clears downed power lines.

“We have to wait until we can get that safe, and I know Dominion has its hands full as well,’’ Shealy said. “When daylight came, that’s when the tree calls started flooding in.’’

Forest Acres officials estimated that more than 100 trees fell because of the storm. Two girls were injured by a falling tree on Furman Avenue and taken to a hospital. They were later discharged with minor injuries, according to Forest Acres’ Facebook page.

While downed trees made driving hazardous and inconvenient for motorists Friday in the Columbia area, falling trees proved deadly in parts of the state. In northwestern South Carolina, two people were killed by trees that crashed on their homes, according to Upstate media outlets attributing the information to the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office and coroner’s office .

The storm also took a toll on a small urban forest preserve overseen by USC. About a dozen trees at the Belser Arboretum in Shandon toppled over, said Bob Askins, a manager at the preserve. One crashed into the arboretum’s outdoor classroom. Among the trees that fell was a huge longleaf pine, a relatively rare species that natural resource managers are trying to restore. When that tree fell, it took out other trees, Askins said.

High winds and soggy ground had a lot to do with the loss of trees.

The Columbia office of the National Weather Service reported that the highest wind gust at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport was 67 mph at 6:12 a.m. That occurred as Helene’s remnant eye wall approached the area.

Meteorologist Pierce Larkin said Thursday’s heavy rain soaked into the soil, making conditions ideal for many trees to topple in Columbia and other parts of the state.

“We’ve already had quite a bit of rainfall in the northern half of the state, so with really intense winds and saturated soil, that’s led to a lot of the tree damage,’’ he said.

In addition to downing trees, the storm caused widespread power outages and flooding. That all occurred as a consequence of Helene, which made landfall in Florida and then quickly pushed over the Southeast.

Silas Baldwin said he was glad to clean up the tree litter that fell on his neighbors’ front yard, particularly since his family did not lose any trees. He and his mother worked as a team, hauling branches to the street to be picked up by city workers later.

“I just wanted to help out,’’ he said.

This story has been updated with information from the cities of Columbia. and Forest Acres.