Newberry is one of the worst-hit SC counties from Helene. Most homes remain without power

One of the worst-hit parts of the Midlands was still digging out from the devastation left by Hurricane Helene three days after the storm blew through the western half of the state.

Power outage maps on Monday showed a stark split down the middle of South Carolina between powered-up blue counties in the east and often dark red in the west — including Newberry County, where 76% of the residents still were without power Monday afternoon.

Bethany Green is one of them. On Monday, she was using a generator at the house she and her father were staying in on the east side of Newberry, after a large tree was blown over during the storm and pulled down power lines, poles all up and down her block, and narrowly missing the front of her truck parked in the street.

“There’s a dent in the hood, but that’s it,” Green said. If the truck had been parked a few feet forward, “there would be no car to go to work.”

At the time that tree came down early Friday morning, Newberry was losing all incoming power, said City Manager Jason Taylor, leaving 100% of the city’s homes and businesses without electricity.

At the same time, Taylor estimated that about 80% of roadways in the city had some kind of obstruction, making it harder for the city to respond to the emergency. Newberry County Memorial Hospital had lost power, as had the city’s water and sewer system.

“We’ve got to get those up and going,” Taylor remembers thinking. “We’ve got to get the road open, or we couldn’t get our emergency vehicles out.”

After a “methodical” push to get back up and running, by Monday the city manager said some three-quarters of the power customers in town had service restored. Outside Green’s house, a North Carolina-based crew was working to hang a tangle of downed power lines back up on a new pole — part of a 16-hour shift crew members were working to restore power in Newberry and other areas affected by Helene.

Statewide, some 740,000 people were without power on Monday, with some estimated to be without power until Thursday, a week after Helene made landfall in Florida and quickly wrecked much of the Southeast.

Green and her neighbors managed to avoid any structural damage to their homes, other than a branch that fell in her backyard and put a hole in the roof of her shed. The home still has water and, and after some concern when the town initially lost power, food is still available at local stores.

“We’re pretty self-sufficient,” she said.

A few blocks away, Chris Dunn wasn’t as lucky. Winds that reached 80 mph pushed over his neighbor’s pecan tree and sent it crashing through his roof shortly before 6 a.m. Friday, sending water pouring into an unused bedroom. But even he’s grateful it wasn’t worse. He and his partner have continued to live comfortably in the rest of the 140-year-old rental since the tree came down, and he expects the damage to the roof can be fairly easily fixed.

“It’s a really well-built house,” Dunn said. “There’s heavy timbers in it.”

‘There are people worse off than we are’

Dunn’s house only lost power for 12 hours Friday, he said, a quicker turnaround than many of his neighbors and something he credits to being on the same circuit as the hospital.

For those who weren’t so lucky, a temporary shelter was opened at Newberry High School, and the city opened a charging station in the old firehouse where residents could plug in their devices and get online.

Coffee and water were provided to a couple dozen people on Monday in front of a big flatscreen TV with the latest weather news. Menda Shelton left her still powerless home in Joanna to take advantage of the charging station along with her 14-year-old son, Xavier, and 4-year-old daughter, India. Xavier used the internet access to complete remote school work while his mother considered taking advantage of the showers opened to the public at the YMCA.

Taylor estimates hundreds of people came through the charging station over the weekend, especially as Newberry College was without power until midday Sunday.

“College students were laid out on the floor to get charged,” he said.

Even as he saw people stopping on the street to take photos of the fallen pecan tree, Dunn’s thoughts were with other people in his community.

“I joked that we should put out a table with a collection jar and then take it downtown,” he said. “There are people worse off than we are.

“Everyone in our community, whether I know them or not, has asked if we need anything,” he said. “That says a lot.”

Sign Up for The State, This Week