By Sara Israelsen
Even though BYU is safe in land-locked Provo, many students from the East coast are worrying about family members as tropical storms and hurricanes attack their hometowns.
On Sunday, tropical storm Gaston made landfall near the small town of McClellanville, S.C., with heavy winds that left torrential rain and a trail of debris in its wake. By Monday evening the storm had subsided with heavy rain as the primary concern.
Two other storms are currently brewing in the Atlantic Ocean, with Tropical Storm Hermine centered almost 210 miles south-southeast of Nantucket, Mass., and current category three Hurricane Frances about 220 miles northeast of the northern Leeward Islands.
Kristen Liljenquist, a senior English major from Myrtle Beach, S.C., lives about 60 miles from McClellanville and five minutes from the coast. Liljenquist, who recently returned to Provo for school, said she didn?t have a television set-up yet and relies on her parents for information about the weather situation.
?He said they cancelled church,? she said about a conversation with her dad. ?It made me think it was bad if they canceled church ? that it must have been somewhat severe.?
And just a few weeks before, Liljenquist said her family had lost four trees in Hurricane Charley, one of which fell on their house, damaging the gutter and a few shingles.
?It [Hurricane Charley] went by really fast,? she said. ?It wasn?t too bad of a storm. [It was] pretty tame by the time it got to us.?
According to the Web site for the National Weather Service in Raleigh, N.C., Charley moved from a tropical depression to a tropical storm and finally reached hurricane status as it neared Jamaica on Aug. 11. After gathering strength, it was labeled a category four hurricane Friday, Aug. 13 when it hit Charlotte Harbor, Fla.
Hurricanes are ranked from one to five according to their strength. In a category four storm, the winds can range from 131 to 155 mph and create extreme damage.
Philip Scherer, a junior studying Microbiology from Sarasota, Fla., said when his parents first heard about Charley and its possible path, they went through all the usual hurricane preparations, including stocking up on supplies and boarding up windows. But Scherer said they were surprised that Sarasota would be considered as the target of the eye of the hurricane.
?[It was a] complete shock,? he said. ?Usually over the past 10 years since I?ve lived there, hurricanes have gone up to north and south [Florida], Louisiana, Texas. Florida always seemed to be spared expect for Andrew. Maybe this was the one time that it was going to hit, where I was from, [but we] ended up being spared again.?
Charley ended up going south taking the brunt of the damage away from Sarasota.
But not every town was so lucky. Lora Banks, a junior elementary education major from Fort Walton Beach, Fla., said her aunt and uncle who live 15 minutes outside of Tampa lost their roof and half of their house to Hurricane Charley.
?Arial shots [showed] complete, utter devastation, not a house standing anywhere,? she said. ?If anything scares me about a hurricane, it?s losing the irreplaceable stuff. Jewelry, cars ? you can get those again. It may be hard, but you can. [But you?ll] never get that letter or picture back. That?s the scariest part, losing my past.?
