SUMTER, S.C. — Clean-up continued outside the Liberty Square shopping center on Old West Liberty Street Monday after Sunday storms left part of the roof in shambles.
Jessica Eberly, a cashier at the Teriyaki Wok restaurant in the center, said her boyfriend was one of the first to arrive to see the damage.
“My boyfriend works as a cook in the back and he was called to come in and help kind of clean up and assess the damage, see what was going on. If they were going to open for the week or not,” Eberly said. “I saw a video briefly of what had happened and I was kind of in like shock. I was like oh, oh no.”
She said he recorded the damage which showed the tin roof and insulation pealed back. However, at the start of the day, they were able to continue working inside with the ceiling still intact.
“The refrigerator damages is what I know as the brunt of it because the motor sits on top and the metal roofing came right off and tore the motor with it,” Eberly said. “It’s just a wild thing, but you know the weather’s going to do what the weather’s going to do.”
Across town, a peaceful Sunday afternoon turned into one of fear for Erika Stuckey and her daughter as the storm passed through.
She rushed to bring her dog inside as the weather worsened.
“It felt like a roof was about to come off of my house,” Stuckey said. “Then we heard this loud bang. Come to find out our fence fell into the house, so we ran into the bathroom. Now, the lights are going in and out, going in and out, and it just went out for a couple of minutes and came back on.”
While they sought shelter, she said, “I started to pray. I just started to pray for me and her safety.”
It wasn’t long before she could return outside. She found her furniture tipped over, gazebo shifted and fence partially broken.
“I was just terrified. I was scared because it was unexpected,” she said.
According to Eberly, Teriyaki Wok is expecting the damages to be taken care of by the property manager and insurance.
Elsewhere, mostly downed trees and some power outages were reported as the storm passed through.