East Greenwich mother races against clock to bring daughter home after storm evacuation
By Kirsten Glavin
@kirstenglavin
EAST GREENWICH, RI – Jodi Sceery sent her daughter Claudia off to college at the end of August. Now more than a month later, she found herself trying desperately to get her back.
"She’s my baby!” said Sceery. “She’s my first born and she was out there by herself. I was panicking!"
The College of Charleston sent an email to students and parents, saying they were closing Wednesday due to Hurricane Matthew. The deadly storm is projected to head directly toward campus.
"it’s not something you really think about when you send your child off to school, you know,” said Sceery. "Charleston said the evacuation is indefinite."
The concerned East Greenwich mother found flights sky-rocketing in price, at every click. Sceery told ABC6 News she almost bought a $1,500 flight, but it ended up getting booked before she could snag it.
"Literally within minutes it went from $400 to $600 to $800 to $1200 – I think it got as high as $1,400 within like 30 minutes! I kept pushing the buttons, and then it finally said ‘sold out’ ‘sold out’ ‘sold out’ ‘sold out.’"
With Charleston airlines booked solid, Claudia had to hitch a ride to Savannah, Georgia and managed to get a $500 flight from there. Getting out of the campus was even more of a challenge. A ten minute drive, turned into two hours of bumper to bumper traffic as the whole city was told to evacuate.
"Everyone was leaving so, it wasn’t just the college students. It was the entire city."
Claudia did return to her home in East Greenwich Wednesday. Meanwhile, the governor of South Carolina declared a state of emergency.
*************** LETTER TO STUDENTS *******************
Dear Campus Community:
This morning, approximately 50 students from the College of Charleston as well as members of the College’s student affairs team boarded buses bound for the University of South Carolina in Columbia to wait out Hurricane Matthew.
As you know, our students were originally scheduled to head to Clemson, but due to many students from other universities around the state heading there as well, we decided to reroute our students to USC. I want to thank Clemson President Jim Clements for offering his hospitality to our students. I also want to thank University of South Carolina President Harris Pastides for agreeing to take our students and for being a gracious host to the College. These relationships between our three universities reinforce the collaborative nature of higher education in South Carolina and our state’s sense of community. We are lucky to have such partnerships.
The College is officially closed at this time, and our buildings and assets are secure. This was a herculean effort made possible by members of public safety, physical plant, grounds crew, academic affairs and information technology. I thank them for all of their help and hard work.
I also extend my thanks to the members of residence life, student affairs, new student programs and dining services – for working around the clock to ensure that our students were safely evacuated and the concerns of students and families were addressed as best as possible.
The College’s leadership team will continue to monitor Hurricane Matthew and its impact on our campus. Once we are able to assess any potential damage, we will notify all of you when we will be reopening campus. If you are curious about how the College fares during the storm, you can check out our webcams by visiting http://webcams.cofc.edu. For updates, please monitor your College of Charleston email and the College’s emergency website (emergency.cofc.edu).
Please stay safe and be careful over the coming days. I look forward to seeing you all back on campus in the near future.
Sincerely,
Glenn F. McConnell ’69
President
College of Charleston
