Water Damage Restoration in Meggett, SC

Mandatory evacuations are already being issued in parts of South Carolina ahead of Hurricane Florence, which has strengthened to a Category 4 and may be close to that strength when it makes landfall. More evacuations may be coming. The storm is currently expected to make landfall around Thursday, but hurricane paths are always a bit unpredictable. Read on for details about evacuation zones and maps for South Carolina in 2018, as Hurricane Florence approaches, so you can be prepared. This is a developing story.

Current South Carolina Evacuations

Gov. Henry McMaster has issued a mandatory evacuation order for the entire coastline of South Carolina, and mandatory evacuation procedures will begin Tuesday at noon. These evacuations are to ensure that residents don’t stay for the hurricane’s landfall.

Breaking: SC Coastal zones now evacuating ahead of #HurricaneFlorence #ABC11 #ncwx https://t.co/qKoi2uqHzj

— @AmberRupinta (ABC11 (@RupintaABC11) September 10, 2018

Lanes will be reversed on four major highways, including U.S. 501, and state offices in 26 counties will be closed (as will schools.) A mandatory evacuation is also in place for certain hospitals in the area.

The following are a list of evacuation zones and routes in South Carolina according to the South Carolina Department of Transportation and other state government sources. Of course, these are only going to be instituted if evacuation orders have been issued in your region.

Evacuation Zones & Maps in South Carolina

If you’re unsure as to which evacuation zone you’re in within South Carolina, this map will help. It’s the Know Your Zone interactive map from SCEMD.

You can also use an app on iOS or Google to determine your evacuation zone using your phone’s location or physical address.

Here is another map, provided by SCEMD, which shows a detailed breakdown of evacuation zones for each area. You can see a larger map and zoom in here.

SCEMDSouth Carolina Evacuation Zones

South Carolina has a 2018 hurricane guide which you can read here to help you prepare. This map, from South Carolina’s official guide, details the hurricane evacuation routes as designated by SCDOT:

South Carolina Evacuation Route

Here are more details about evacuation routes based on your location, as provided by SCDOT and the Department of Public Safety. These will come into effect when evacuations are issued for the regions. These are divided into conglomerates and regions. Search for your city or county or region to find the areas that are relevant to you.

Northern Conglomerate Evacuation Map

SCtraffic.orgNorthern Conglomerate Map

This evacuation route includes Little River, North Myrtle Beach, Briarcliff Acres, Myrtle Beach, Socastee, Surfside Beach, Garden City, Murrells Inlet, Winyah Bay, and Georgetown. Learn more here.

SC Traffic (the Department of Public Safety) describes the northern evacuation routes this way:

Central Conglomerate Evacuation Map

SCTraffic.orgCentral Conglomerate Map

This evacuation map includes Edisto Island, Adams Run, Yonges Island, Meggett, Hollywood, Ravenel, John’s Island, Kiawah Island, Seabrook, James Island, Folley Beach, City of Charleston, North Charleston, East Cooper, Mt. Pleasant, Sullivan’s Island, Isle of Palms, Awendaw, and McClellanville. Learn more here.

SC Traffic (the Department of Public Safety) describes the evacuation routes this way. (The following is quoted from SCTraffic.org):

Southern Conglomerate Evacuation Map

SCTraffic.org

This evacuation map includes Hilton Head, Beautfort, and Bluffton. Learn more here.

SC Traffic describes the evacuation routes this way. (The following is quoted from SCTraffic.org, provided by the Department of Public Safety):

The following are the same evacuation details, but provided according to regions designated by SCDOT:

Grand Strand Area Evacuation Routes, Including Myrtle Beach and Garden City Beach

According to SCDOT, these are the following evacuation routes for the region, once evacuation orders are issued.

Georgetown County, South CarolinaGeorgetown County Evacuation Zones

Evacuation routes:

Evacuation zones:

The following are the evacuation zones for Georgetown County, according to the Georgetown County government’s website:

Charleston Area Evacuation Routes & Details

According to SCDOT, these are the following evacuation routes for the region, once evacuation orders are issued.

Hilton Head Island & Beaufort Area Evacuation Routes & Details

According to SCDOT, these are the following evacuation routes for the region, once evacuation orders are issued.

READ NEXT: North Carolina evacuation routes and maps

Stephanie Dube Dwilson is a sports and entertainment contributor for Heavy covering Texas Longhorns football and Hallmark. More about Stephanie Dube Dwilson

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OPINION AND COMMENTARY

Editorials and other Opinion content offer perspectives on issues important to our community and are independent from the work of our newsroom reporters.

Opinion

A Sunday morning national news program has a weekly segment titled “Lives Well Lived” to honor the lives of recently deceased people who have used wisdom and compassion to make meaningful contributions to society. South Carolina lost one such person last month, a lady whose life was redolent with creativity, compassion and love for her native Edisto Island.

Emily Meggett was not necessarily a household name in our state, but she should have been. And although she received national praise and attention last year for the publication of her cookbook, “Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes From the Matriarch of Edisto Island,” she remained what she had always been — a lady who loved the place where she was born and where she spent her entire life, the place she and her husband raised 10 children.

“Ms. Emily,” as everyone called her, died at the age of 90 in April.

In a day in which we spend too much time fascinated about infamous and scandalous citizens of our state, it’s refreshing to take a breather and recognize a lady like Ms. Emily.

For the past year, her culinary skills and her philosophy of life have made her a revered figure, ever since the cookbook she wrote appeared on The New York Times bestseller list and was nominated just last week for a 2023 James Beard cookbook award, an honor that came only a few days after Ms. Emily’s death.

Called by the Times, “the first high-profile cookbook centered on the food of the descendants of the enslaved people of the coastal South,” the book’s 123 recipes were ones Ms. Emily made for her husband and children, her large church family, and for families for whom Ms. Emily had worked as a cook over the years. It was one of these families who encouraged her to write the cookbook and helped her put it together.

She never used a recipe herself, never measured her ingredients, and created her dishes based on what had been handed down in her family for many generations.

According to those who knew her well, Ms. Emily spent much of her life giving to people on Edisto Island who needed her help. Long before her success as a cookbook author, she spent nearly 70 years gaining the reputation of someone who gave what she could to people who needed help, especially those who needed food to eat. She often drove around Edisto Island with a pot of food in her car, seeking people who needed a meal, and as she once said, “asking God to lead her to especially needy people.”

Her cookbook fame publicized the fact that everyone who knew Ms. Emily understood that, if her kitchen door was open, anyone could stop by for food. Evidently, this inspired several of her cookbook fans to travel across the country to see if her kitchen door was open, not to eat her food but to thank her for her amazing recipes.

I was one of those folks who wanted to just drop by and say hello and thank her for the best deviled crab recipe on the planet, as well as marvel at her life of helping others.

When a friend and I arrived at her house, the kitchen door was closed, so we turned to leave. One of Ms. Emily’s daughters appeared at the door to tell us that her mother was not at home, and I asked if I could leave a note for her.

My note didn’t say all I wanted to say, but I was happy to have left it for her. I just wanted to thank this lady who loved the land, who loved her heritage, who offered help to others as part of her everyday life, and who gave the world a glimpse of our state that is inspiring.

Hers was indeed a life well lived.

Isabell Meggett Lucas, 86, and Emily Hutchinson Meggett, 84, two matriarchs of the Meggett family of South Carolina, were among 25 Edisto Island residents who visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture for the first time yesterday, April 10.

Lucas was born in the Edisto Island cabin, which is prominently featured in the “Slavery and Freedom” exhibition in the museum. Her sister-in-law, Meggett, grew up in a family-owned house nearby. The cabin is prominently displayed in the history galleries of the museum where it helps tell the story of slavery and freedom in the 19th century.

The two-room wood cabin dates to the 1850s, and members of the Meggett family inhabited the cabin from about 1910 until as recently as the 1980s. Meggett is the wife of the deceased Jessie Meggett, who grew up in this former slave cabin in South Carolina. Several generations of the Meggett family joined the 87-year-old to view the cabin exhibit for the first time. This emotional experience was captured by the Smithsonian oral-history project; the filmed interviews will be preserved as a part of the living history of this cabin.

“We are delighted to host the Meggett family at the museum,” said Nancy Bercaw, co-curator of the “Slavery and Freedom” exhibition. “This is a milestone in the life of the museum—being able to truly humanize an object on display; this cabin is more than a cabin; it is a home. While the current exhibition features the cabin as it was used during the period of slavery and emancipation, we see the cabin as a living object that holds hundreds of truly moving stories about the people who lived in it from 1853 to 1981. Having this cabin on view is a powerful way for museum visitors to learn about the Meggetts and other families who lived on Edisto in the 20th century.”

“It was so exciting, so exciting,” Lucas said. “I never thought I’d see a house that I lived in be in a museum…not in my lifetime. People can look at that house and the pictures around it and know that everything didn’t come easy back then.”

“All of us living in there (in the Meggett family row of cabins), we were all together—like family,” Meggett said. “We played together, ate together; the kids, we would fight together, learn together.…We never talked about slavery. We never talked about being poor. And we never went to bed hungry.”

The Edisto Island cabin was acquired by the Smithsonian in 2013 and dismantled plank by plank and reassembled in the museum. The Edisto Island Historic Preservation Society donated the cabin to the Smithsonian after originally receiving it from the Burnet Maybank family, which owned the Point of Pines Plantation where the cabin was built and used to house people who worked the fields. The exact age of the cabin is not known, but records show that in 1853, it stood on the site of the plantation from where it was dismantled. The Edisto Island Slave Cabin exhibit has been one of the most popular exhibits for visitors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

About the National Museum of African American History and Culture

The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened Sept. 24, 2016, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Occupying a prominent location next to the Washington Monument, the nearly 400,000-square-foot museum is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive cultural destination devoted exclusively to exploring, documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history. For more information about the museum, visit nmaahc.si.edu, follow @NMAAHC on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat or call Smithsonian information at (202) 633-1000.

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On Sunday, Johnson encouraged her peers to participate in the study, titled "A Journey to Equal Education: Stories from Historic African-American Communities." The oral histories would be a gift to future generations of African-American students, she said.

"We didn't realize we had a story to tell about coming here, but we do," she said. "We can truly let the world know the people on James Island have a story to tell."

Interviews with alumni, former teachers and staff members will likely begin in February, said lead historian Mary Beth Reed. This spring, New South Associates researchers plan to host a "heritage day," in which alumni are encouraged to bring any photographs, documents and artifacts they may have from their high school days. Examples of relevant artifacts would be yearbooks, engagement rings or prom boutonnieres, she said.

Of the 30 alumni who attended a recent informational meeting, only a dozen raised their hands when asked if they wanted to be interviewed.

A 1954 graduate asked Reed who would benefit from her sharing her memories.

"You're telling your story the way it happened to you during this time period," Reed said. "You're adding to the historical record."

The documentation of the segregated Charleston-area school is timely given the state of education for black children today, Johnson said.

"Amen," said Barbara Brown, W. Gresham Meggett class of 1966.

Brown said she often describes her high school experience to her children, who attended James Island High School. Though their school was integrated, the quality of their education was inferior to what she received, Brown said. Her children were years behind in reading, for example.

A recent Post and Courier investigation found that de facto segregation continues to permeate the state's education system today. One in eight public schools have a student body that is comprised of 90 percent or more minority students. About 36,000 children, mostly white, choose not to attend the public schools each year and go to private ones instead, the newspaper found.

MEGGETT, S.C. (WCBD) – Lowcountry Leadership Charter School is celebrating ten years of creating leaders through Project Based Learning experiences. Students say their school is the G.O.A.T. literally.

For students at Lowcountry Leadership Charter School in Meggett, South Carolina, a day of learning involves feeding and tending to goats and chickens.

“We have wonderful CTE programs in our high school, that’s Career and Technical Education. Our largest CTE program is agriculture. We have a farm on campus,” said school leader Julianne Lang.

“Here on the farm, we feed animals. We learn how to use heavy machinery. We take the eggs, we sell them. The milk from the goat we use to make lotion and lipstick,” explained tenth-grade student Braden Van Dort.

Students there are excelling in agricultural business.

“Our AG teacher makes it fun. We experience new things. It’s more than just agriculture, we learn business, life goals,” he said.

Agricultural education teacher Katie Bell says, “It’s a learning laboratory. Every animal and plant here has a purpose. We teach everything from plant science to animal science. Students in high school can become completers, which is CTE program here, that’s an extra certification at graduation. They can also be a part of our FFA chapter, Future Farmers of America. We do a lot of leadership activities, so the students not only learn hands-on real-world skills in the program, but they’re also becoming leaders in the community, and in the nation.” Junior Keziah Darby is planning a career in agriculture and says she has a major head start. “If you take four classes, you get a certificate. It basically helps you with your scholarships. I like that we’re hands-on, and not just you do this, you do that. Everyone is hands-on with it.”

This is just one of the Career Technical Education opportunities at LLCS.

School leader Julianne Lang said the focus is on developing leaders through Project Based experiences. “So, our mission is to have a safe exceptional academic environment that cultivates independent learners through hands-on experiences,” she said.

LLCS serves more than 500 students in K-5 through 12th grade, in Charleston, Dorchester, and Colleton counties.

And the state charter school has academic bragging rights. “We do outperform all of our local schools academically,” said Lang.

Inside the classroom, students in Mrs. Jasmine Winn’s math class are learning about statistics and probability with a fun twist.

“Every Wednesday, we have fantasy football Wednesday, our big project for the first two quarters. They get to take actual NFL players and use their points and stats to calculate using formulas to see how many points their players got, and they’re competing against other students in the class in healthy competition. Lots of math, they learn how to graph, analyze charts and data, statistics and probability,” said Winn. “It helps keep kids engaged, who don’t respond well to traditional learning, really respond well to project-based learning when they get to have real-world experiences. Our school is the coolest school.”

LLCS renews its charter this year, as they celebrate ten years, and look ahead to the next ten.

Lang says, “The mission for us to develop accountable leaders, community stewards, and diverse thinkers is really what we’ve seen come to fruition with our school. We’re still continuing to grow some of our programs, and we’re really excited about that growth. We’re starting an addition to the facility soon, and expanding a little bit, and so we’re really excited about the future at LLCS.”

If you would like to nominate a Cool School or educator, send an email to Octavia Mitchell at omitchell@wcbd.com.