Aiken Co. seeing lots of hurricane damage

AIKEN COUNTY, S.C. (WJBF) – Aiken County is seeing lots of damage with multiple storm-related deaths being reported.

Cleanup is underway in North Augusta to take care of many downed trees and power lines.

Lake Avenue is a historic North Augusta road with many old houses and trees, and a lot of them were damaged Friday morning by weather that people who live here have never seen before.

“We got one of those 114 year old houses so water was coming in the windows, we woke up to water being sprayed on our face,” says Matt and Angelica Kelly, who reside in North Augusta.

The Kelly’s house was spared, but towering trees crashed onto or beside homes on the street.

One of the hardest sights to see is the devastation of one iconic house in the area, that neighbors say is owned by a local doctor.

“We were worried they were in there, and so we ran around and made sure their cars weren’t here and found out they were out of town thankfully, so that was pretty scary,” says Nic Hoffmann, Lives on Lake Avenue, who resides in North Augusta.

Hoffman lives right beside the destroyed home, and he says many people know the owners and love the house’s historic charm and pristine lawn.

“When we moved into our house they had yard of the month and we were like oh we want our house to look like that house. It’s over 100 years old and it is absolutely beautiful so it’s really a tragedy,” says Hoffman.

Power lines are dangling and thousands of people are out of power with no set time of when it will be restored.

But, North Augusta residents say they continue to persevere

“Chainsaws were all going, we were hacking and slashing and getting trees out of the way. We tried to go and grab some more equipment but all the roads were taken out, it was nuts. But all the neighbors came out and we cleared out a bunch of roads quickly today,” say the Kellys.

Neighbors say amid the devastation, they have been helping each other out tremendously – many have been walking by and checking on each other.

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