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Hurricane Matthew: Timeline and pictures
Hurricane Matthew 002
Ted O'Neil
Updated: Oct 13, 2016, 12:36 PM
Published: Oct 13, 2016, 12:38 PM

Hurricane Matthew, the most devastating to impact Georgia since 1979, formed as a tropical storm in the Atlantic in late September. It reached hurricane status Oct. 1 as a Category 5 and made landfall in Haiti Oct. 4 as a Category 4.

At that time, the exact path Matthew would take was not clear, but some projections had it moving just off the coast of the southeast United States, putting Florida, Coastal Georgia and the Carolinas in a “wait and see” mode.

Here is a time line of events during Bryan County’s experience with Matthew”

Oct. 4: Gov. Nathan deal issued an executive order declaring a state of emergency for Bryan County and 12 others. Bryan County Schools Superintendent Paul Brooksher announced schools would be open Oct. 5.

Oct. 5: Brooksher announced schools would be closed Oct. 6 and 7. Athletic events Oct. 5-7 are cancelled, including Richmond Hill and Bryan County region softball tournament games and the Richmond Hill Middle School football homecoming game.

Oct. 5: Bryan County placed under voluntary evacuation beginning at 5 p.m.

Oct. 5: Gov. Deal calls for voluntary evacuation for all Coastal Georgia counties.

Oct. 6: Gov. Deal issues mandatory evacuation for all Coastal Georgia residents living east of I-95. The Bryan County Emergency Services command center opens at 7 a.m. Emergency Services Chief Freddy Howell calls Hurricane Matthew a “life-threatening situation” as the path of the storm is confirmed that it will not shift east away from the coast. By 7 p.m. a mandatory evacuation order is issued for all of Bryan County.

Oct. 7: A mandatory curfew from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. is issued for Bryan County residents east of I-95 who did not evacuate. Bryan County is placed under a tornado watch until midnight and a flash flood watch until 9:45 p.m. At 5 p.m. a “shelter in place” order is issued, requiring those who stayed to remain indoors while the storm hits.

Oct. 8: A mandatory curfew is in place for residents who remained, prohibiting businesses from opening and requiring residents to stay off the roads. At 1:30 p.m. Bryan County Schools announces there will be no classes Oct. 10 or 11. At 7 p.m. Howell announces residents who evacuated can start returning after 7 a.m. on Oct. 9 but are not guaranteed access to their homes.

Oct. 10: The Great Ogeechee Seafood Festival committee announced the 2016 event, scheduled for Oct. 14-16 in J.F. Gregory Park, is cancelled. Bryan County Schools announces classes are cancelled for the rest of the week.

After Matthew hit, more than 12,000 customers of Coastal Electric Cooperative, Canoochee EMC and Georgia Power countywide were without power. By Wednesday, that number was down to about 1,200 with the vast majority — about 1,000 — in the Pembroke and Ellabell areas.

Storm debris collection began Tuesday and will be taken to the landfill on Fort McAllister Road. Congressman Buddy Carter and state Reps. Jesse Petrea, R-Savannah, and Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency to get the process started. The agencies had originally requested the debris be left in place, but collection can proceed as long as the process is documented.

Trash collection has begun in Richmond Hill and the county, but recycling is suspended until further notice. Neither has started yet in Pembroke. The water systems in Pembroke, Richmond Hill and the county are fine, but residents on private systems are encouraged to boil tap water. A burn ban remains in place.

Howell said the experience has shown him “the heart and soul” of the community.

“There has been tremendous care and compassion among neighbors,” he said.

Howell added that he thinks more people will evacuate the next time.

“Even with the persistent warnings, many were hesitant,” he said. “But with the potential to be that bad, I think more will leave next time around.”

While the initial cleanup has progressed, Howell thinks the overall process will be lengthy.

“We’re talking weeks, if not months, to get our infrastructure back to normal,” he said. “The landscape of our community has been changed forever, but we’ll adapt.”

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Later yall, its been fun
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Ted O'Neil
Updated: May 23, 2018, 6:03 PM
Published: May 23, 2018, 6:05 PM

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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