The Johnny Mercer Pier in Myrtle Beach, SC is buffeted by strong waves driven by Hurricane Fran.Digital Photo by Bob Rives/Staff

At 5pm, Fran was 95 miles south-southeast of the SC/NC border

Web-posted Sept. 5, 1996 at 3 p.m.

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The Associated Press

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) - Rain fell in horizontal sheets today as thousands of Carolina residents and tourists fled inland, memories of Hugo's devastation still fresh, as Hurricane Fran aimed for a late night landfall.

Lines were long at grocery store checkout counters and gas stations as people stocked up on fuel, food and bottled water. Motel rooms were booked hundreds of miles inland, while Ocean Boulevard was nearly deserted.

Fran's 30-mile wide eye was expected to hit just north of the state line, near near Calabash, N.C., about 10 p.m., spreading hurricane-force winds 100 miles inland, the National Hurricane Center said.

Lynn High, owner of Calabash Marina and Storage, spent the morning pulling boats out of the water, putting plywood over windows and remembering Hurricane Hugo.

The Johnny Mercer Pier in Myrtle Beach, SC is buffeted by strong waves driven by Hurricane Fran.Digital Photo by Bob Rives/Staff

``I'm more worried about this one,'' she said. ``We're in a little cove here, but I think we'll have a lot more wind and water than even during Hugo.'' Forecasters said tides could be 12 to 16 feet above normal northeast of the eye, and warned of 5 to 10 inches of rain as well as tornadoes in the path of the storm.

At 3 p.m., the storm was about 105 miles south-southeast of the South Carolina-North Carolina border. It had speeded up and was heading north-northwest at 16 mph.

Sustained winds were still at 115 mph and hurricane force winds of 74 mph or more extended 145 miles out from the eye. Forecasters said it probably wouldn't strengthen further, but warned of even higher wind gusts.

``You do ... what you can do,'' Janice Forest said from a shelter at a high school south of Charleston. ``You leave the rest up to nature, which is God.''

Waves wash ashore in Myrtle Beach, SC as Hurricane Fran prepares to come ashore.Digital Photo by Bob Rives/Staff

Because of the more northerly track, a hurricane warning was dropped south of Edisto Beach but continued north from there to the North Carolina-Virginia border.

The storm is as big as Hurricane Hugo in 1989 though not quite as strong.

``I think people's memories are very vivid about what can happen,'' said Clarendon County Administrator Bobby Boland, whose community was heavily damaged by Hugo. ``We're making all the initial preparations we can.''

Hugo caused almost $8 billion in damage and killed 35 people as it tore through the Caribbean and up the East Coast. Most of the damage was in South Carolina.

On Wednesday afternoon, Gov. David Beasley called out the National Guard and ordered a half-million people evacuated from the coast.

If someone refuses to leave, ``we ask for next of kin,'' said Georgetown County Sheriff's Maj. Mike Schwartz.

Nevertheless, as the storm moved more northward, some Charleston-area residents decided to stay and return to the beaches this morning on Sullivans Island.

A lone vehicle works its way down a downtown street in Myrtle Beach, SC as Hurricane Fran prepares to come ashore.Digital Photo by Bob Rives/Staff

``The surf and the waves here are sort of high, but it doesn't look too bad at all,'' Maura Bannon said as she walked the beach with her 2-year-old son and their dog. ``This doesn't scare me at all, so we're going to wait awhile longer before deciding if we're going to move inland at all.''

A handful of others also walked the beach and one man pulled up in his car with a surfboard.

But in Georgetown, about midway between Charleston and Myrtle Beach, merchants hastened to empty their downtown storefronts where water after Hugo was 5 to 6 feet deep.

``We're taking everything we can take out,'' said Billy Johnson, the owner of the Pink Magnolia Cafe, as he and other employees loaded chairs, glass tabletops and furniture into a rental truck.

They would park the truck in a nearby cemetery where there were no trees that could fall on it, he said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency sent crews to the Southeast in preparation for the storm, and Director James Lee Witt said six tractor-trailers loaded with cots, tents, generators, blankets and other supplies were ready to go. The Agriculture Department stockpiled food and eight medical teams were on alert.

Georgia authorities recommended that coastal residents evacuate and declared a state of emergency in 11 counties, making them eligible for state money for cleanup and repairs.

In North Carolina, people began evacuating from Ocracoke Island, which is only accessible by ferry. Emergency planners along the southern coast of the state began urging people to leave beaches and barrier islands Wednesday night. Some residents along the South Carolina coast, recalling how Hugo ripped through their communities, worked to fortify their property, while others chose to leave.

``The energy's starting to pump up here,'' Tom Owens of Cincinnati said as he bought disposable diapers and baby formula at a Food Lion in Myrtle Beach.

Cars were lined up five or six deep at gas stations while traffic on Interstate 26, the main road inland, was bumper-to-bumper out of Charleston late Wednesday. Billboards along the highway already had pieces removed so the wind would not blow them down.

Jacob White of Beaufort, who said he has seen several hurricanes and has grown to respect them, waited in line to top off his car's tank.

``You have to trust the man upstairs, too. But it helps to have a little gas,'' he said.

As residents and an estimated 150,000 tourists moved inland, they found hotel rooms scarce.

Most hotel rooms in Columbia, about 100 miles inland, were reserved by 3:30 p.m. ``I've called 14 hotels,'' a busy desk clerk at the Adam's Mark downtown said late Wednesday. ``They are all booked.''