Devastating Myrtle Beach tornado remembered
Wednesday marked the 15th anniversary of the rare tornadoes which spun through parts of Myrtle Beach and caused millions in damages at hotels and other businesses while injuring about 36 people.
A cold front mixed with a thunderstorm moved along the coastline and spawned a waterspout around 21st Avenue North that twisted its way onto the beach July 6, 2001.
The F2 tornado tore the roofs off of at least two Myrtle Beach hotels, tipped over buses and cars, flung around pool furniture and caused the worst reported damages at hotels between First and Eighth avenues South as it swirled with wind speeds between 113 and 157 mph.
“It certainly livened things up on Ocean Boulevard that afternoon,” Mark Kruea, city spokesman, said as he recalled the storm that caused about $10 million in damages and sent about 30 people to the hospital with minor injuries during the busiest vacation week of the year.
Horry County Councilman Gary Loftus managed the Bar Harbor Motor Inn at 100 N. Ocean Blvd. when the storm unleashed its fury and peeled the new roof of the main building of the hotel, which was operating at full capacity.
The tornado formed around 4:20 p.m. and another was spotted at 4:40 p.m.
The storm surprised many because two area weather radars were out of service when the waterspouts formed, weather officials said. However, about 40 minutes before the first tornado hit, a Special Marine Warning was issued because of the potential for waterspouts, which are tornadoes that occur over water, officials said.
Loftus vividly recalled the day the storm struck. He said he was at a meeting around 17th Avenue North and Oak Street and passed through intersections without power as he went back to the broken business, which was closed for 11 months due to the storm’s damage.
“There was a bus on its side in our parking lot,” Loftus said. “The sign was bent in a way that no one thought it could be bent. … We had just put a new roof on the main building three or four months earlier and it was hanging off the side.”
Loftus said no one suffered major injuries, despite the amount of destruction, which he said totaled to about $4 or $5 million for the hotel.
“It damaged every room,” said Loftus of the property’s eight-story main building, which housed about 55 rooms plus a penthouse. “There was an air conditioner literally sucked out of the wall.”
All guests had to be placed at other establishments, and Loftus said neighboring hotels came to the rescue. All displaced guests had accommodations by that evening.
“We had to let everyone in one-by-one to get their luggage because we didn’t know how structurally sound the building was,” said Loftus.
The American Red Cross opened a shelter for others displaced by the storm.
Two trolleys were heavily damaged when the tornado flung them down Ocean Boulevard. Most of the vehicles parked in the area from Fourth Avenue South to Second Avenue North had shattered or blown-out windows.
One of the twisters bottomed out at the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base.
Santee Cooper reported about 4,000 customers without power around 6:45 p.m. that evening. Most of them were in Myrtle Beach from the Pavilion area south to Springmaid Beach and near Myrtle Beach International Airport, officials said.
City workers spent days sweeping up broken glass and other debris in the aftermath of the storm.
Kruea said phones were ringing off the hook with concerned callers from across the Carolinas who heard about the storm and wondered how Myrtle Beach had fared.
“It certainly made for an exciting day,” said Kruea. “Fortunately, tornadoes are fairly rare here.”
This story was originally published July 6, 2016 at 8:10 PM with the headline "Devastating Myrtle Beach tornado remembered."