Journal & Topics Media Group

Sue Vs. The Hurricane

Dorian Diverts Niles-Maine District Library Trustee’s Travel Plans

Sue Wilsey (right) and other social media moderators she traveled with in Augusta Georgia Wednesday, Sept. 4. (Photo provided)

Niles-Maine District Library Trustee Sue Wilsey had planned on vacationing in Myrtle Beach, SC, last week with a group of fellow Facebook group moderators. But her timeframe for travel ended up coinciding with predictions for another visitor to the Carolinas: Hurricane Dorian.

Wilsey planned to meet up in Myrtle Beach with as many as 12 others who moderate a page for the diet book “Delay, Don’t Deny” by Gin Stephens. They would be traveling from as far away as Bangor, ME, Portland, OR, Vancouver and St. Louis. Their destination: condominiums along Myrtle Beach, arriving just as days before, Dorian was pounding the islands of Grand Bahama and Abacos in the Bahamas as a Category 5 storm.

With only a few days warning, flights and accommodations were hastily changed. They considered Nashville before settling on staying at a home owned by one of the group members in Augusta, GA.

Wilsey flew into Atlanta Sept. 3 and was picked up by a member of the group. Along the road to Augusta, she said she saw a long line of power company trucks headed in the opposite direction.

After the storm passed Myrtle Beach and headed toward New England and Nova Scotia, Wilsey said the group stayed overnight in Myrtle Beach, Saturday, Sept. 7 and Sunday, Sept. 8. The condominium had only suffered minor flood damage from the storm.

In spite of predictions, Hurricane Dorian did not pound the Carolina coast the way it ravaged parts of the Bahamas. When it finally made landfall in Myrtle Beach on Thursday, it was a Category 1 storm.

Wilsey said the group regularly travels together on cruises, and may consider a trip to the Bahamas next year — just not during hurricane season.

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