George Moody knew something was wrong when he opened his back door and saw that the stairs were gone.
It was around 3 p.m. Jan. 9 and Moody wanted to take a nap. But an alert sounded on his phone, warning him of a possible tornado in the tiny city southwest of Orangeburg. His house, tucked just behind the main downtown strip, began to shake. The wind howled so loud it sounded like a train whistle, he said.
When Moody shut his back door, part of the roof collapsed. He immediately dropped to his belly — as close to the ground as he could muster without going outside. Moody’s home, affectionately called “the Beach House,” sat atop stilts. Pressure from the collapsed roof was enough to send the piles buckling, along with Moody, who was still prone on the second floor.
He crawled through an opening in the wreckage before bolting across the street to a nearby corner store.
“When I came out of there, I said, ‘Man, thank the Lord,’ ” said Moody, who escaped without injury.
The twister, which was about 400 yards in width, seemed to carve a path straight through downtown Bamberg. Wind gusts up to 125 mph crumbled storefronts along Main Highway and dumped debris across the road.
It was part of a powerful storm system affecting much of the eastern U.S. High winds and heavy rains battered the Palmetto State, wreaking particular havoc on Bamberg’s southern end.
The scope of destruction remained unclear Jan. 10, with local officials saying the number of damaged buildings would likely increase as crews completed their assessments. National Weather Service workers counted at least 80 downed trees, many of which fell on residents’ properties.
Though no injuries or deaths were reported, the storm struck another blow to an already struggling community.
Bamberg and its roughly 3,000 residents have endured a long period of economic decline; most of the downtown storefronts affected by the twister were abandoned.
Mayor Nancy Foster praised City Council’s efforts in recent years to revitalize the area, but said storm damages would likely set back those efforts.
Steady decline
Several of Bamberg’s longtime residents can point to specific developments that contributed to their city’s decline.
James Barnwell, who was born and raised in Bamberg, owns a meat market and restaurant on Main Highway. He’s worked in the same building for nearly 50 years.
He remembers a bustling Bamberg in the 1960s, back when U.S. 301 was still a main north-south corridor. But Barnwell said he noticed a marked change around 1968 when Interstate 95 officially opened. People no longer had a reason to stop in the city.
“We just went right on down in the dumps,” he said.
Most of the storefronts along Main Highway — part of 301 — were still occupied in the early 2000s, when Barnwell said the dynamic started to shift again. A state-sponsored, road-widening project along 301 transformed the downtown business district into a limited- access highway. Wrought iron railings went up along the sidewalks to protect pedestrians from speeding cars. Parking along the thoroughfare was eliminated.
“That really killed it,” Barnwell said.
The Great Recession of 2008 shuttered more downtown shops. And in 2012, Bamberg County Memorial Hospital closed its doors after its board declared bankruptcy. No one wants to move to a place without a hospital, Barnwell said.
Bamberg County remains home to several longtime manufacturing and aviation industry employers. Rockland Industries, which produces blackout fabric, and a local hydraulics factory each employ about 130 people. So does Collins Aerospace, which manufactures high-tech nozzles.
But these days such high-paying positions are outnumbered by service sector jobs, such as Uber driver and “sandwich artist.”
Barnwell and Craig Walker, another local resident, hope their city will become a vital place to live once again.
Assessing storm damage could provide an opportunity to look at the downtown area differently, said Walker, who also serves on the county’s economic development commission.
Barnwell isn’t holding his breath. He remembers the 2019 fire that destroyed several buildings on one side of Main Highway. The cleanup process took about a year, he said.
Barnwell’s business wasn’t damaged by the Jan. 9 storm. But patrons must enter the meat market from the back. Yellow tape blocks the front door, which opens onto Main Highway.
Could be days
Piles of rubble — bricks, wood, shingles — litter the pavement. Nearly the entire front wall of the second floor of an antique furniture store was ripped off. The tornado punched a hole in the roof of the adjacent building and nearly sent the façade to the street.
Bamberg Lt. Marty Watkins said police officers closed down the road as soon as they could. He pointed to the antique shop.
“If that building right there falls — and it’s not gonna take much — … it’s gonna kill somebody,” he said.
Foster, the city’s mayor, said the cleanup process is at the mercy of insurance companies and officials who are assessing the damage. It could be days before residents are told it’s safe to go near the business corridor, she said.
“I don’t know where to really start,” Foster said, noting Bamberg could lose some of its more-than-a-century-old downtown buildings, especially those in disarray before the storm hit.
Helping hands
The typically sleepy city was bustling early Jan. 10 as residents surveyed the damage in the daylight. Dominion Energy workers repaired downed power lines. Crews drove big trucks to haul away fallen trees.
At Kevin Crosby’s house off Carlisle Street, a group of football players from Bamberg-Ehrhardt High School cleared branches from the backyard. They dragged a heavy tree off Crosby’s black sedan, then stood watch as another man chopped the trunk using a power saw.
The teens responded to a text message appealing for help around the neighborhood. They showed up at Crosby’s around 10 a.m., he said. Walker, who owns the “Beach House” property where Moody was living when it collapsed, said he has received many calls and well wishes after neighbors heard about the devastation.
“We’re a small, close-knit community, and we really value helping each other in times like this,” he said.
Walker was in the process of transforming the old home, which once belonged to a former Bamberg mayor, into an Airbnb. He’d installed new windows, reconfigured walls and added a new portion to the back. He doesn’t have insurance.
But he’s hopeful he can apply for federal disaster aid if it becomes available, he said. And Walker is determined to one day rebuild again.
