NEWS: Tropical storm may turn into hurricane Monday

Staff reports  |  Officials are closely watching the churning in the Atlantic Ocean as Tropical Storm Isaias moves north towards the Carolinas coast.  Heavy, spotty rain has been reported Monday morning.  

The storm, near the Georgia-Florida line early this morning, is expected to be off the coast of Charleston by Monday night, bringing with it heavy rains.  At 5 a.m., maximum sustained winds were 70 mph.  It may gain enough power to be a hurricane, forecasters say, with the highest winds occurring off the coast.  The probable landfall is Wilmington, N.C.

As of 8 a.m., Charleston was under a tropical storm warning, but a hurricane warning stretched from the South Santee River to Surf City, N.C.  A storm surge warning is in effect from Edisto Island to the North Carolina line.

Helpful info:

• Four City of Charleston parking garages are open to cars for free through Tuesday. See the list.
• Charleston County’s three waterparks are closed Monday due to the storm.  More.

Also in the news:

Lots of great pets.  If you’d like to see pictures of scores of great pets around the Charleston area, check out the City Paper’s special pet superlatives contest for the year.  There are smiling dogs, frisky cats and more.  Great photos.

Trident Tech to hold most classes online.  Trident Technical College will only offer classes with skills-based, hands-on requirements on its campuses this fall. The majority of classes will be held online, the college recently announced. Fall classes start Aug. 24. The college is holding three virtual open houses next week where prospective and returning students ​and their families can learn more about the college and get their questions answered about attending this fall. For more information about the events or to register to attend, visit bit.ly/TTCopenhouse.

Experts say S.C. voting may be at risk due to cyberthreats.  The computer-connected world poses an immediate threat to South Carolina’s and the nation’s elections and, thus, the future of democracy, elections and online experts say.  “It’s a threat to our democracy when we have foreign governments, our own intelligence is saying, attempting to influence our elections,” Columbia Democratic Rep. Seth Rose said. “We should all be very, very terrified about that and be taking steps to do something about it.” Threat to democratic elections include voter tampering or voter registration tampering through hacking. But those attacks, elections experts say, are just the tip of the iceberg. Read more in this story from sister publication Statehouse Report.

More missing students found.  While South Carolina public schools have tracked down 12,528 students in recent weeks, 3,557 students have not been in contact with their school since March 15 when the state moved to distance learning.  Initially, the state Department of Education found tens of thousands of students hadn’t checked in with their teacher by April, raising alarms around the state. By June 29, an official report from the state Department of Education found 16,085 students were still unaccounted-for. By last week, Charleston County School District reported 40 missing students, down from 356 in June.

More than 195,000 South Caorlinians are still seeking unemployment. The 195,208 people are continuing to claim state jobless benefits in South Carolina. The figure dwarfs the number of those who filled out the state’s unemployment rolls during the Great Recession. Read more. 

Pandemic kills 1,709 in S.C. so far. The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control on Sunday announced 1,110 new confirmed cases of coronavirus and an additional 27 deaths.  Since March, the state has recorded 91,257 confirmed cases and 1,709 confirmed deaths. The percentage of positive COVID-19 tests dropped to 15.2 percent by Sunday. More.

Statehouse Report’s Lindsay Street contributed to this section. Have a comment?  Send to:  editor@charlestoncurrents.com