Conway area family displaced by January fire still cleaning up rubble

Every morning, Don and Tracy Hunter leave a Myrtle Beach motel room and drive to Carolina Forest High School.

They drop their 15-year-old son off, then head over to Kings Road, a side street off SC 544 between Socastee and Conway.

They lived on that street for nearly 20 years in a home that is now a pile of sooty debris.

“I go to the motel room at night,” Don Hunter, 45, said. “I take a shower, get cleaned up. I come back here during the daytime and shovel burnt crap into a dumpster.”

For nearly three months, they’ve spent their days trying to clean up the rubble. A Jan. 28 fire destroyed their home and made headlines when firefighters were forced to shut down SC 544 traffic for more than an hour so they could run hoses from one side of the busy highway to the side where the Hunters lived.

Tracy Hunter, 45, was taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, but no one was seriously hurt. The same could not be said for the house.

Blackened furniture still sits in the living room, visible from the road because there is no side wall. Pieces of glass lie on the sidewalk.

The family has gotten by largely on their own perseverance. A Gofundme account set up for them had raised just $275 as of Tuesday.

The fire came at an already difficult time for Don Hunter, who lost his landscaping and construction business after suffering the first of two strokes. He’s also battled other ailments that forced him to go to the Medical University of South Carolina for treatment.

Tracy Hunter tried to manage the company initially, but she couldn’t run the business and take care of her husband.

She said Don Hunter’s health problems have affected his memory. Sometimes, he wakes up in the motel panicking because he’s not sure where he is.

“Then I have to explain to him all over again,” she said.

As the Hunters cleaned up their property Tuesday, Horry County officials discussed the fire that left the couple homeless.

County leaders maintain there are enough fire hydrants in the S.C. 544 corridor, despite the January fire.

County Administrator Chris Eldridge told the council’s Infrastructure and Regulation Committee that what happened two months ago was not the norm.

“That’s the first time I could find anybody remembering us having to lay [hoses] across the highway,” Eldridge said. “That happens every once in awhile, but I can’t remember any other time that that’s occurred.”

Eldridge said the county has “excellent coverage” of hydrants on S.C. 544. He pointed out that many rural communities in Horry don’t have hydrants and firefighters have to use tankers and water shuttles to combat fires there.

“There’s plenty of places in this county with no hydrants and they would kill to have one across the road,” he said. “Because it makes a big difference.”

One sticking point for neighbors along S.C. 544 has been the lack of hydrants on one side of the highway.

Grand Strand Water & Sewer officials told WPDE in January that placing water mains on both sides of the highway wasn’t economically feasible. They also said the county follows the national fire protection standards of placing a hydrant every 1,800 to 2,000 feet.

Eldridge pointed out that fire hydrants are required in the county’s policies for new developments. All lots must be within 500 feet of a hydrant.

The administrator did say the fire department plans to experiment with ramps that would allow slow-moving traffic to travel over the hoses.

“Maybe you could keep traffic crawling through,” he said. “But [the ramps] are not going to be able to take the abuse of 18-wheelers and a lot of high-speed traffic.”

Council members seemed content with the administrator’s explanation, but the Hunters disagree with his conclusion.

Don Hunter said the scene of the fire that day was so chaotic he complained to fire officials.

“My house is burning and they’re out here playing around with hoses,” he said. “I talked to the dude that was standing out here with the special looking hat. I said, ‘You running this show?’ He said ‘Yep.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t think I’d tell nobody else that because this is a circus, son.’”

The Hunters would like to see more fire hydrants in the area, especially on their side of S.C. 544.

“If I had a fire hydrant somewhere around here, they could have saved my house,” Don Hunter said. “But instead you see what I’ve got left.”

This story was originally published March 22, 2016 at 1:03 PM with the headline "Conway area family displaced by January fire still cleaning up rubble."