Irene Passes Charleston With a Few Punches

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — Irene rumbled and roared through Charleston on Friday, but she wasn’t loud enough to scare away vacationers. “Ahh, this is nothing,” says one vacationer from North Carolina. For others, she made a little more noise. “Irene woke me up, it actually turned over some of our patio furniture,” says Justin Boyd. But for Justin Boyd, Irene is nothing new. “For down here, it was pretty nasty, but we’ve seen worse,” says Boyd. Hours later, Irene packed even more punches, briefly interrupting Perry Jameson’s bridge run. “I planned to run to the other side, but I stopped. I don’t know it was like 30-40 mph winds, I was like, I don’t want to get blown off the bridge,” says Jameson Irene didn’t stop there, the storm put more than 2,000 Folly Beach residents in the dark. Power lines were left in the roadways and drivers in traffic jams. But even with all that, Irene couldn’t keep the daredevils like Lenny Juckett from catching the surf. “It’s exhilarating and exciting,” says Juckett And don’t be fooled, Juckett meeting Irene was no accident. “Yeah I planned it so I could catch the waves, I try to make every storm I can,” says Juckett. He wasn’t alone in the ocean or the sand. Afterall, vacation must go on.