Day 9 -- Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Friday 7/6/2001
Excursion(s): Tornado evacuation and Dixie Stampede
Lilly slept a bit better than last night, but our neighbor's son had still left his radio on in his tent during the entire night. In fact, it was still on when we went out in the morning. What is also aggravating is that he has placed his tent over on our site and we suspect that the actual radio is resting on our site inside his tent!! We let the kids sleep a bit longer. Lilly went out and took a morning swim. It was very nice outside. Our immediate neighbors (between us and the beach) had left before we got up so now we have a little bit more ocean-view. That is nice.
By now Vincent had decided that time will not permit him to get the RV fixed in time for his travels southwest. Instead, he'll continue with the kids in his car from Myrtle Beach. Meanwhile, Andree will continue to track parts from Montreal. Sounds as if the new plan is to get it repaired, driven back to Montreal and then sell it. The original idea was to have the RV for the trip the southwest and then sell it, but there is not much RV to ride in now and there is little point in stalling the entire summer vacation for a repair that may take forever. Oh, well.
It was hard to get the kids organized to go outside. Today looks to be another hot and sunny day and the temperature picked up very quickly. After breakfast, the kids just wanted to go inside and play the Nintendo video game. Lilly needed to run some errands to Wal-Mart. I walked to the pool with Karl, who did not want to go to the beach. They stayed there for a little while until Karl was ready to go down to the beach. Vincent was sitting in one of the chairs he had rented for the week. The kids were already in the water; Isabella walking along the shore with her net, the two boys riding their little surf boards and Paule playing at the shore. I went out with in the waves for a little while. They were quite high this morning, some reaching 4-5ft (1.2m-1.5m). Lilly bought water guns at Wal-Mart for everyone. Before lunch, the kids had a water fight outside the trailer. We ate sandwiches for lunch. With that we had a few ripe mangos and peaches. The water gun fight continued after lunch.
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Enjoying a water gun fight before lunch
Lilly walked back out to the beach after lunch, while Vincent sat down and looked at his maps to plan his trip southwest from here. The kids were back in the trailer, relaxing a bit for this evening's event at Dixie Stampede.
By about 4pm we started to get ready for Dixie Stampede. The pre-show was set for 5:15pm and with all the traffic we'd have to leave here by 4:20pm to make it. We were all set to go. I thought about picking up the T-shirts we'd won from the fun-run, by Lilly did not think we'd have enough time. I walked outside to check on the kids and Vincent was standing there in his bathing suit, saying he needed another five minutes. I walked back into the trailer and grabbed the T-shirt tickets and got back outside again. Huh? The sky looked really weird. It was all black and the clouds were rotating in that ominous fashion you see on TV .. and there were thunder and lightning coming out of it like we've never seen before. A TORNADO!!!! What the heck is going on??
A tornado touching down in Myrtle Beach -- picture taken facing north from our trailer
People were looking up the coast in complete disbelief. This is not happening. A real tornado and a big one too. And the clouds were rotating really fast. We had gone from clear skies to this in a very short amount of time. We scrambled to get things packed away. We took down awnings and flags. We tried to shove important things under the trailer. Lilly made a quick visit inside the trailer to pick up "important" things, in the event our trailer would be damaged. We jumped into our cars and started to head out of the campground.
Tornado seen from north facing south; we're on other side of tornado. Photographer unknown
As we headed reached Highway 17B it was completely stalled in southbound lane. This called for Plan B: we could head north on Highway 17B and cut over by the old Air Force base to Dixie St. All the traffic was heading south, away from the tornado. The road going north was clear. We decided to head north, along with some others. We got about 2 miles (3.4km) up the road in heavy rain and incredible lightning. I was sure the tornado was out by the shore and up towards north Myrtle Beach. The northbound highway was blocked by police and we had to turn around towards a certain traffic jam.
One of several tornado touchdowns; this one barely 3 miles (5km) from our trailer
The rain was coming down very hard and we could no longer tell where any tornado might be. We could see lightning once a second and hear thunder go off a lot. We headed back south, in traffic jam, towards 544, where we parked next to a brick wall, listening to the FM radio and the CB radio. Later we learned that we had done well to follow the police advice to turn around on Highway 17B as we'd been heading right for the vortex... We waited in heavy rain for about 1/2 hour and finally drive up 544 and then 17 north. Myrtle Beach air force based was closed off at the 707 intersection with five police cars. Something must have happened in there. Highway 17 north was clear and we continued towards Dixie Stampede. We did not get very far until we got right into traffic jam again. We would later learn that a second tornado had touched down in northern Myrtle Beach, which then caused traffic to back up.
We did not arrive at Dixie Stampede
until 6:20pm, at least 20 minutes late for our main show, and over an hour late
for the pre-show. We managed to swap our tickets for the 8pm show, which had a
supposed pre-show at 7:15pm. We got the kids fed a little bit. Vincent had some
granola bars. While waiting for the pre-show, we walked outside and looked at
the horses.
We then looked at a pre-show, which started much later than planned due to the weather having blocked off roads for people to come to the show. The kids were getting very impatient. But as soon as the show started they got captured by the electric cowboy from Australia. He also did some tricks with a long whip that he cracked in the air. At one point he had two volunteers on stage with whom he played some tricks. The interesting thing about his quarter horse was that it could walk in stairs, both up and down. We learned that they are called quarter horses because they are the fastest horses there are in 1/4 mile races.
The electric cowboy pre-show at Dixie Stampede
The actual show was good and very patriotic for Americans. You are served a meal as you watch the show, which has a lot of horses and humor in it. The room is divided into two halves: The North and the South, just like during the civil war. The two sides of the audience are then pitted against each other in assorted noise making contests. They had all sorts of events, including horse riding, magic tricks, pig races, ostrich races, etc.
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A few pictures from the very end of the show
After the show we drove home. We used the shortcut by the Air Force base and could see some definite tornado damage in the south east corner. It was dark outside so it was a bit hard to get a clear idea, though. We'll check that out tomorrow. When we got back to the campground, the trailer was still there. We could see that the water been high on the street after we left, as the high water had left debris behind. We could see no apparent damage. That felt good.