COLUMBIA, S.C. — A storm tore through the Midlands last night, impacting Richland County and the surrounding area. Throughout the day on Wednesday, crews have been working throughout Columbia to clean up the damage.
The Richland County Administration Building which is closed for the day because the county says the storm caused a power outage. It's just one of the areas that's being impacted by the storm.
“I’m a little bit bummed out,” Columbia resident Jena Cox shared.
Cox says she was hoping to come by the building to pay taxes so she can switch out her paper tag on her car to a permanent one, but since the building was closed, Cox wasn’t able to.
“Today is my half day,” Cox referenced her time off from work. “I’m normally working when they’re open so I was hoping today I could get in, get what I needed to do get done.”
Brenda Legins moved to Columbia from Texas four months ago. Legins says she needed to stop by to get her property tax exemption but couldn’t because of the closure.
“It's a process to get this taken care of,” Legins explained. “Go here, go there. Go here. Go there. So finally we received our letter and they told us to come here to the assessor's office. And so we were really kind of disappointed that we can’t get that taken care of today.”
The storm tore through the area, knocking down business signs and damaging power lines.
“It was wild to watch,” Kristine Matthews explained about seeing explosions. “We didn’t actually expect something like that to happen.”
Matthews was at work when she saw the wind knock down limbs across the street, and started recording as the fallen limbs caused the power lines to spark.
“We all were kind of just inside helping patients. I work the front desk and one of the patients was like, ‘That tree’s on fire!’ So we all looked outside,” Matthews detailed. “And so there like just little bits and pieces of the tree branch kind of that was touching the wire just on fire and then all of a sudden the wire broke and you could see the big explosion from the electrical wires. And that happened about three or four more times for the next, like, 15 minutes.”
Matthews says there was a fire truck nearby, monitoring the fire.
“Shortly after the electrical wires started to burst, the Dominion Energy showed up, so we knew they already were aware,” Matthews explained. “They just were kind of monitoring the situation.”
There was wind so strong that it toppled trees down on houses and a sidewalk on the University of South Carolina (USC)'s campus.
“We thought that something had just been stuck really close by. It was loud,” USC Freshman Caroline Weaver said. “You could hear the wind whistling through the windows like crazy.”
Now, a crew is working to clear the tree away from where it fell outside of Capstone Resident Hall, the on-campus building where Weaver lives.
“I was kind of sad because, I mean, one of the things that makes USC so pretty is all of the trees and all of the greenery,” Weaver shared. “And you know, that's like my front yard and so I kind of feel sad that it's not there anymore. But you know, I'm glad that they were able to get people out here so quickly to clean it up.”
“It’s a mess,” USC Junior Daria Washington added. “We have a beautiful campus and I think all this trash, everything from the weather…just looks all a mess.”
Paul Sterne is the Chaplain at the CS Lewis Student Center, right across the street from the fallen tree. Sterne says he lives in the building, and while he heard the storm last night, he didn’t realize the tree had fallen until he saw it this morning.
“I’m glad there wasn’t anybody under it. I’m glad there wasn’t a kitty cat under it or a car,” Sterne said. “It’ll be a shame. I love the trees. That’s one of the things that’s beautiful about Columbia, but this is something that happens from time to time.”
The Richland County Administration Building says while it was closed all of Wednesday, it’s working to get the power outage restored.
"Residents who need to access County services should do so online at www.richlandcountysc.gov until operations have returned to normal," the county wrote in a statement sent to media and posted on its website. "While Richland County expects to resume normal operations Thursday, residents should continue to monitor the County’s website and Facebook page for further updates."
When it comes to residents like Cox, she explains she’ll try again.
“Yes, we'll definitely come back tomorrow,” Cox planned. “We have to.”