McClellanville was hit by Matthew, but not nearly as bad as other places

I ran into a barrage of questions this week from Grand Strand friends, all wondering how I and McClellanville fared in Hurricane Matthew.

It was a legitimate concern for two reasons:

1. Matthew reportedly came ashore in McClellanville, though it was several miles south of the village, and 2. most remember how McClellanville nearly was wiped off the map by Hurricane Hugo — then rebuilt with the help of dozens of Grand Strand volunteers.

Big difference, of course. Hugo made a direct hit as a category 4 hurricane; Matthew skirted the coastline as a category 1.

Actually, my wife and I left for the weekend to Paris Mountain State Park in the Upstate, a trip planned weeks earlier to coincide with a medical seminar in nearby Greenville.

So it wasn’t an evacuation, just a well-planned camping trip to a place that remained sunny and relatively cool through the weekend.

Okay, we did leave a day earlier than planned and we did take Bo, the cat, as well as Wasabi, the dog who goes with us most everywhere. We wanted the whole family out of harm’s way, just in case. And, yes, we did close the hurricane shutters on our home.

We didn’t worry much about our daughter and her two sons in Little River. The hurricane, we all believed, would be heading out to the Atlantic before it got to Little River.

We couldn’t have been more wrong. As it turned out, parts of the Grand Strand, including Little River, took a greater hit than McClellanville. Even today, some Horry County residents can’t get to their homes because of the overflowing Waccamaw River.

It’s even worse in eastern North Carolina, where several people lost their lives in unimaginable flooding. I don’t think anyone saw that coming.

As for us, we returned home a few days later to a yard full of twigs and leaves and one screen door that had blown open. That was the extent of it — amazing, since we too had heard that the storm came ashore almost at our front lawn.

Still, there were several trees down in the village, though none on homes or vehicles. There were a few hours of lost power, and some water on the streets and yards — but most everything looked normal by the time we returned.

Indeed, a day or two after Matthew hit, I read a quote in USA Today from one McClellanville resident who was overjoyed at how little damage was done.

“I’m rolling in pink,’’ he said.

And a shrimper, who had come down to the marina to inspect his boat after Matthew passed, could only grin as he told a Charlotte Observer reporter:

“When I saw my boat, I went home and cooked me some breakfast. It was a good feeling, a really good feeling.’’

A lot of us could echo his words.

Contact Bob Bestler at bestler6@tds.net.

This story was originally published October 21, 2016 at 11:02 AM with the headline "McClellanville was hit by Matthew, but not nearly as bad as other places."