By Lolita Huckaby
BEAUFORT
Well, at least we know now what’s going in the former Ribaut Road bowling alley.
The city Planning Commission last week approved plans for a multi-use building to accommodate, yes, more storage units. But also, office spaces and even several residential apartments.
The building at 1140 Ribaut Road has been empty for the past three years and the cause of much speculation by passing motorists. Dr. Skeet Burris and his son, Andy, for the past year worked with the city planning staff to develop the property into 28 rental office spaces with a common area and storage units to the rear of the building. The second floor will provide living area for a property manager plus two rental living spaces.
The approval comes as the Port Royal Town Council is taking measures to restrict the number of self-storage facilities being built within their town limits.
The council earlier this month, at the urging of citizens, agreed to change the T4 zoning ordinance to prohibit any more self-storage businesses. Citizens voiced concerns, during public hearings on the matter, the town was becoming “the storage unit capital of the Lowcountry.”
It may be fall but hurricane season still with us
BEAUFORT – Sunday marked not only the start of autumn but it was also the 35th anniversary of Hurricane Hugo striking the coast of South Carolina.
So far, the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season has been a quiet one, at least for Lowcountry residents. But even as this column is being written, there’s another storm out there, moving slowly towards the Gulf of Mexico with a possible path across Florida and into the Atlantic.
For those who were in the area in 1989, just the name “Hugo,” prompts all kinds of memories of evacuations and major destruction north of Beaufort and Charleston, centering on the tiny community of McClellanville. Even those who headed away from the coast to evacuate to places like Charlotte have tales of power outages and lines of traffic.
Once the storm passed this corner of the Lowcountry, dozens of volunteers packed up chainsaws and trucks, heading north to help their fellow South Carolinians.
Eight-six fatalities were blamed on the storm, with $8 to $10 billion in property damages, not counting the physical damage you can still see in the trees along U.S. 17 south of Georgetown. Hugo still holds the record for the highest East Coast storm surge prompted by its Category 5 winds.
Weather experts predicted an “above normal” Atlantic hurricane season this year, with 17 to 25 named storms. To date, we’ve had four named storms, two of which reached actual hurricane strength.
So far, so good for the Lowcountry. But hurricane season officially ends Nov. 30. We have an election to get through first.
Lolita Huckaby Watson is a community volunteer and newspaper columnist. In her former role as a reporter with The Beaufort Gazette, The Savannah Morning News, Bluffton Today and Beaufort Today, she prided herself in trying to stay neutral and unbiased. As a columnist, these are her opinions. Her goal is to be factual but opinionated, based on her own observations. Feel free to contact her at bftbay@gmail.com.
