ORANGEBURG COUNTY, S.C. — At least 9 people are dead following and multiple are injured after powerful storms rolled through the state of South Carolina Monday morning.
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Two of the deaths were in Orangeburg County, five were in Hampton County, one was in Oconee County, and another was in Colleton County.
Orangeburg County Coroner Samuetta Marshall identifed the couple who died in as 63-year-old Gerald Chavis and his wife Doris Chavis, 68. Both died as a result of blunt force trauma.
The area where the deaths took place is near the towns of Neeses and North on the western side of the county. That's is in an area where a large radar-indicated tornado moved through just before dawn. Three people were also transported to the hospital with what are described as non life-threatening injuries.
Orangeburg County officials have set up a command center in Nesses which is a crossroad point to go up 321. There’s ongoing search and rescue operations underway, and we're told multiple mobile homes have been destroyed.
The National Weather Service will survey the area to confirm that it was indeed a tornado at that location, but all indications are that it was.
The deaths in Orangeburg add to others that have been reported. One person died in Oconee County, and five people are dead in Hampton County, according to multiple media reports.
Around 5:30 a.m. a powerful EF-3 tornado was reported on radar in Barnwell, Aiken, and Orangeburg Counties. The storm had 140 mile an hour winds when it reached Orangeburg County. Radar indicated a large debris field and it stayed on the ground for a long time. Both those are indicators of a large, intense tornado.
Video that has already come in that shows heavy damage near the towns of Williston in Barnwell County and North, Norway, and Springfield in Orangeburg County. That would be the area where the tornado was indicated on radar.
At one point, the National Weather Service in Columbia warned the public that they were dealing with a "particularly dangerous situation."
Power is still out to a large portion of our viewing area as well. At one point there were over 290,000 outages, but by 4:30 p.m. Monday, that number was down to a little over 100,000. SCEMD said that was more peak outages that during either Hurricane Dorian or Hurricane Florence.
Make sure to have multiple ways to receive weather alerts, such as your phone with the WLTX alerts mentioned above or a weather radio. Do not put your phone on silent so that you are able to hear the alerts.
The WLTX Weather Team will continue monitoring the weather outlook.
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