Strong winds yield downed trees, wrecks — and overturned fuel pump

Starting around 4:15 a.m., the damage included several wrecks where vehicles ran into trees that had fallen and many calls of trees across roadways and into power lines.

North responded to a downed tree at 3599 Savannah Highway at 4:23 a.m., which was quickly cut out of the roadway.

Upon returning to their fire station around 5:05 a.m., they found a diesel fuel pump blown over at the Marathon gas station located at 4601 Savannah Highway in North. It was still running under the ground, causing fuel to fill up the space underneath the blown-over pump. There was no emergency cutoff outside of the station, so the owner of the station had to be called.

In the meantime, North fire personnel prevented over 40 gallons of diesel fuel from spilling onto the roadway and into the ditch by first stuffing a rag into the line that was flowing to slow it down and then using 5-gallon buckets to dip the fuel out. The fuel was  dumped into a larger container.

— Billy Robinson, special to The T&D

Wind and rain

According to the National Weather Service, the peak wind gust at the Orangeburg Municipal Airport was 61 mph around 4:20 a.m. Monday.

It was the highest wind gust recorded in the entire Midlands and Central Savannah River area.

The highest sustained winds at the airport were 33 mph during this same time period.

Rainfall was plentiful from the storm.

Here are some of the rainfall totals from the storm as recorded by weather observers across The T&D Region:

• St. Matthews: 3.69
• Cope 3.37 inches
• Orangeburg: 3.02 inches
• Denmark: 2.93 inches
• Santee: 2.55 inches
• Holly Hill: 2.25 inches
• Elloree: 2.03 inches
• Springfield: 1.68 inches
• North: 1 inch