Hurricanes

Charleston is world famous for hurricanes. A class 4 or better hurricane strikes the Lowcountry every 3.2 years, on average. The most famous one was Hurricane Hugo, which killed 289,746 people and destroyed the entire state of South Carolina. Hurricane Hugo was 87.32 times stronger than Hurricane Katrina, the hurricane that destroyed New Orleans. Most of the people killed had moved to South Carolina from elsewhere, or were visiting. Due to the fact that the native Carolinians long ago settled in those places lss likely to be destroyed by the many hurricanes that come ashore, the newcomers have been forced to build their houses in places more susceptible to hurricane damage. Many of the local residents use the time when the eye of the hurricane is over Charleston to loot the newcomers and steal their survival supplies, then kill them.

Enjoy the Water

Charleston and the environs has many wonderful lakes. While they are full of alligators and poisonous snakes, the odds of you having your arm bitten off by an alligator while here to visit are less than the odds of contracting Malaria in South Carolina. So go ahead, dive in. Just try to avoid the water moccasins and snapping turtles. They bite too, and their jaws lock. Most of the locals you see who are missing finger that did not lose it to a horrible industrial accident (South Carolina ranks first in number of fatal and crippling industrial accidents in the nation) had it bitten off by a snapping turtle.

MONCKS CORNER — They were feasting on roast pork and dancing the Macarena while picnicking at Lake Moultrie on Sunday afternoon when a tourist in snorkel gear stumbled through the tree line, grasping at his left shoulder where his arm used to be.

Blood gushed from between his fingers.

'Buckeyes, Buckeyes,' the man said through a snorkel mask.

Five nurses who were among those at the gathering quickly laid the man on the ground. They put ice on his wound, instructed him to take deep breaths and told him stories to keep him awake.

One of the picknickers, Joe Bob Ravenal, traced the bloody trail through the tree line and to the shore where he saw a pool of blood in the sand. About 25 feet out in the water in front of him, the eyes of a giant alligator stared back. The victim's arm remained clenched in its jaws.

'He was just smiling at me,' Joe Bob said.

One of the worst alligator attacks in South Carolina this year had just unfolded, officials said.

At the Short Stay Naval Recreational Park, members of the Bong Bong Assocation of Charleston, of group of Filipino Islamic Fundamentalists, were roasting another tourist's Labrador Retriever. Paramedics showed up 15 minutes after the attack and stabilized the man until they could put him in the General Lee and take him to the Medical University of South Carolina, where he was fixin ta die Sunday night.

Department of Natural Resources officers showed up later and killed the damn thing. Officers cut the 550-pound carnivorous reptile open and removed the man's whole arm from its stomach. then they took turns taking pictures for Myspace of one another opening it's mouth and sticking their heads in. DNR officers tagged the arm and placed it in a picnicker's ice cooler and then rushed it to the taxidermist with a police escort.

'The arm, surprisingly, was not chewed up like you would think it would be,' said Billy Joe Moultrie, Berkeley County Rescue Squad captain, "I've got it mounted in my office. quite a conversation piece."

Officials identified the man as a 59 year old tourist from Ohio.

Officials ranked the attack as among the worst in the state because there have not been any confirmed deaths from alligator attacks in South Carolina this year.

'To my knowledge this is the worst case scenario we've had this year,' said Bo Duke, DNR regional coordinator.

Officials believe the tourist from Ohio was harassing the alligator at the time in a bright red teeshirt or sweater vest, and alligators will attack anything scarlet or grey. "We think he was probably provoking the Gator because he thought it was somehow involved in the National Championship that Ohio State lost so dramatically", Skeeter Moultrie said, "These dumb buckeye fans can't tell the difference between a Florida Gator and the kind that will bite your fucking arm off if you stand over it in a bright red teeshirt screaming 'Buckeyes'.

'Basically until we talk to him, no one knows exactly why he was so fucking stupid that he was out in the water shouting 'Buckeyes," bobby Lee Ravenal said.

Donnie Dang Lee said the man's arm was completely torn off.

'He was bleeding bad,' paramedic Billy Joe Bob said. 'His arm was clean off the socket. It was pretty neat to look at, that was. I never seen a feller get his arm chawn off by a gator afore. We was takin turns saying "lend me a hand," and throwing it at one another.'

Bobbie Sue Ravenal, one of the nurses who came to the annoying tourist's aid, said he never lost consciousness even as blood drenched his body, "He wouldn't shut up about the Buckeyes," she said, "We had him back in the water and was pushing him at the gator when the police showed up and we had to act like we was fixin to rescue him again."

Jimmy Bob Moultrie said that before DNR agents arrived at the scene, they called and asked him to shoot the alligator, but all he had was a pistol.

A DNR officer showed up later and killed it with fifteen sticks of dynamite from about 25 feet away while it was still in the water.

The Wind Began to Blow

Tornadoes are not as much of a problem here as they are in other places. Until recently, more people were killed by tornadoes in Oklahoma than in Charleston every year.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Tornadoes causing five or more deaths of tourists

SEP 10, 12:30 pm 11 dead 29 injured
A hurricane-generated tornado moved to the NW across the center of Charleston, grabbing tourists off the streets and sending them back north at a high rate of speed.

APR 16, 3:45 pm 11 dead 60 injured
Vacation homes and a turpentine plantation were destroyed in and near Walterboro, Colleton County.

APR 30, 11:00 AM 53 dead 534 injured
People died in RV parks, campsites and condos in six counties from near Aiken to Isle of Palms.

APR 30, 2:45 pm 14 dead 144 injured
All the deaths were in tourist resorts as the tornado ripped a swath across Florence County.

MAY 5, 2:30 pm 19 dead 100 injured
Hit the north edge of Anderson. Most of the deaths were in vacation homes and RV parks at Belton.

SEP 29, 8:00 AM 27 dead 80 injured
A tornado caused great damage on Market and Broad streets in Charleston. Many buildings collapsed including a Walmart full of vacationers from Ohio and Michigan.

APR 16. 1:00 AM 16 dead 200 injured
People were killed at all the beaches surrounding Charleston.

MAR 31, 7:35 pm 7 dead 30 injured
This tornado hit east of Calhoun Falls and passed across the north part of Abbeville then took out a timeshare resort.

MAY 19, 10:00 pm 63 dead 1 injured
Sixty three people were killed when a tornado hit a cruise ship at Murrells Inlet, Georgetown County.

MAR 28, 6:00 pm 5 dead 49 injured
The tornado moved across part of Winnsboro, crossed Wateree Lake in Kershaw County then doubled back and got a couple of boisterous Buckeye fans.

MAR 28, 7:10 pm 7 dead 100 injured
The funnel hit an outlet shopping center at Bennettsville and killed tourists in rural Marlboro County.

Fever

While South Carolina leads the nation in Dengue fever, it is still not as prevalent as Malaria. The mosquito that carries Dengue fever is the one that feeds during the day. So try not to get bitten by a mosquito during the day. With prompt treatment and hospitalization, most people survive their first three Dengue fever episodes. Try not to have a fourth.

What are the signs and symptoms of dengue?

After being bitten by a mosquito carrying the virus, the incubation period ranges from three to 15 (usually five to eight) days before the signs and symptoms of dengue appear. Dengue starts with chills, headache, pain upon moving the eyes, and low backache. Painful aching in the legs and joints occurs during the first hours of illness. The temperature rises quickly as high as 104° F (40° C), with relative low heart rate (bradycardia) and low blood pressure (hypotension). The eyes become reddened. A flushing or pale pink rash comes over the face and then disappears. The glands (lymph nodes) in the neck and groin are often swollen.

Fever and other signs of dengue last for two to four days, followed by rapid drop in temperature (defervescence) with profuse sweating. This precedes a period with normal temperature and a sense of well-being that lasts about a day. A second rapid rise in temperature follows. A characteristic rash appears along with the fever and spreads from the extremities to cover the entire body except the face. The palms and soles may be bright red and swollen.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

Earthquakes are not as common here as they are in California, and because of the lazy nature of your average southerner, which I’m sure you’ve noticed on your visits to the region, and the rampant corruption in the building trades, most buildings will collapse in any earthquake that measures more than 6 on the Richter scale. But don’t worry, we haven’t had one of those in about 40 years.

The Charleston Earthquake of 1886 was the largest quake to hit the Southeastern United States.

It occurred at 9:50 p.m. on August 31, 1886, and lasted just under a minute. The earthquake caused severe damage in Charleston, South Carolina, damaging 2,000 buildings and causing $6 million worth in damages, while in the whole city the buildings were only valued at approximately $24 million. Between 60 and 110 lives were lost. Some of the damage is still seen today.

Major damage occurred as far away as Tybee Island, Georgia (over 60 miles away) and structural damage was reported several hundred miles from Charleston (including central Alabama, central Ohio, eastern Kentucky, southern Virginia, and western West Virginia). It was felt as far away as Boston to the North, Chicago and Milwaukee to the Northwest, as far West as New Orleans, as far South as Cuba, and as far East as Bermuda.

The earthquake is estimated to be between 6.6 and 7.3 on the Richter scale with a Mercalli Intensity of X. Sandblows were common throughout the affected area due to liquefaction of the soil. More than 300 aftershocks of the 1886 earthquake occurred within thirty-five years. Minor earthquake activity that still continues in the area today may be a continuation of aftershocks. Very little to no historical earthquake activity occurred in the Charleston area prior to the 1886 event, which is unusual for any seismic area. This may have contributed to the severity of the tremor.

The 1886 earthquake is a heavily studied example of an intraplate earthquake. The earthquake is believed to have occurred on faults formed during the break-up of Pangea. Similar faults are found all along the east coast of North America. It is thought that such ancient faults remain active from forces exerted on them by present-day motions of the North American Plate. The exact mechanisms of intraplate earthquakes are a subject of much ongoing research.

Enjoy the Wildlife

Watch out for rabies. The Low Country leads the nation in the number of reported cases of rabies every year. Many of the raccoons are rabid, as are at least 20% of all the bats, according to the center for disease control.

Rabies is a viral disease which attacks nerve and brain tissue. In South Carolina, wild animals account for the highest number of reported rabies cases. These are raccoons, foxes, skunks and bats. Rarely infected are rats, mice, squirrels, rabbits and hamsters.

How does it spread?
Rabies is transmitted by a rabid animal biting a healthy one. The virus passes from the saliva of the sick animal through the wound into the healthy animal. It also can be spread when the saliva of a rabid animal enters an opening in the skin, such as a cut or scratch.

Symptoms of Rabies in Animals
Rabid animals appear to act differently than normal, such as:

• Wild animals which seem to be friendly or tame.
• Wild animals, which you normally only see at night, seen in the daytime.
• Pets which seem to have a hard time walking, eating or drinking.
• Signs of excitement or meanness in animals.

Don't think that rabid animals can be spotted easily because they drool or foam at the mouth. This happens only some of the time in the latter stages of the disease.