Tropical Storm Claims 1st Victim
A tropical storm rolled ashore Sunday with heavy rain and strong winds that destroyed more than a dozen mobile homes, killed one person and left thousands temporarily without power.
Just six hours after Tropical Storm Chris became the third named storm of the 1988 Atlantic hurricane season, it moved over land and weakened. But it still packed enough power to devastate trailers in a sparsely populated wooded area about 75 miles inland.
Clarendon County Fire Chief Carter Jones said one person was killed and another seriously injured in a mobile home 3 miles south of Manning.
The winds snapped tree limbs across eastern South Carolina, and tornadoes associated with the same weather pattern tore up trees and roofs in North Carolina.
By 6 p.m., the storm had been downgraded to a tropical depression. Its center was inland near Columbia with maximum sustained winds of 30 m.p.h. in squalls.
The hurricane center warned of coastal flooding and recommended that small craft stay in port from Brunswick, Ga., to Virginia Beach, Va., until winds and seas subsided.
Winds measured in gusts up to 44 m.p.h. in Charleston cut power to an estimated 18,000 customers.
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