Charleston Currents

Focus

FOCUS: Ways to ensure a summer full of safe, fun swimming

Staff reports | A day of enjoying the sun and swimming may seem relaxing, we have to beware and prepare for the inherent risks of the water.

Charleston County Parks highlights safety is a top priority as 10 people drown unintentionally every day. To ensure a safe summer during the swimming season, the park system has lifeguards at its beach swimming areas and waterparks. Lifeguards undergo extensive education and training on drowning prevention and recognition. The county parks organization employs more than 275 lifeguards per season to ensure guest safety.

While lifeguards are the final link in the chain to prevent drownings, swimmers can do their part to ensure their own safety. Officials recommend following five easy safe swimming tips:

by Charleston Currents · 07/12/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

FOCUS: Survey seeks input for priorities leaders should pursue

By Skyler Baldwin | One Region, a partnership of regional government and business groups, has released a survey aimed at further understanding the needs of the residents and businesses in Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties, along with input on what opportunities leaders should pursue.

“One Region is going straight to the source to hear from the Berkeley-Charleston Dorchester community, so we can build on the lessons learned from COVID-19 and anticipate potential threats to our region’s economy,” said One Region chair Kendra Stewart. She is also director of the Joseph P. Riley Jr. Center for Livable Communities at the College of Charleston.

by Charleston Currents · 07/05/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news, News

Exploring Caw Caw park. Photo provided by CCPRC.

FOCUS: Counting on Nature promotes better understanding

Staff reports | Look around and you might find something new, just as local resident Tess Moody did three years ago.

In June 2018, Moody, a part-time staff member at the Charleston County Parks and Recreation Commission (CCPRC), found a new species of millipede at Caw Caw Interpretive Center, according to the agency. She took a photo of the arthropod and posted it to an online forum for entomologists for identification.

She then was contacted by Jackson Means of Virginia Tech, who believed it could be an unidentified species. They were unable to find the millipede specimen at Caw Caw again until June of 2020. This second discovery allowed the two to confirm that the millipede was indeed previously undescribed in scientific literature.

by Charleston Currents · 06/28/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

FOCUS: Rain inundates Charleston, closing 17 streets Sunday

Staff reports | More than five inches of the rain that drenched the Charleston peninsula Saturday caused traffic snarls Sunday as floodwaters had no place to go — even after the rain stopped.

As of 12:15 p.m. Sunday, 17 roads were closed due to flooding throughout the city, according to Charleston police. Thigh-high waters were reported in the Hospital District, and several cars were stalled throughout the peninsula. By early afternoon, streets started reopening, including the Septima Clark Parkway, also known as the “Crosstown.”

Charleston officials said street-sweeping and grounds crews worked Sunday to clean up waste that accumulated after the storm. Stormwater crews also cleared debris from storm drains and will work Monday to identify remaining blockages.

by Charleston Currents · 06/14/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news, News

Pictured from left are: SC Ports COO Barbara Melvin, Jaden Warren, Corbin Pritchard, Noah Cowell, Promise Washington, Rashard Davis and Jordi Yarborough, SC Ports' Senior Vice President of Community Engagement, as they celebrate names for new cranes at the Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal in North Charleston. (Ports Authority Photo by English Purcell provided.)

FOCUS: Area students name five cranes at new terminal

Staff reports | What do these five names have in common — Nifty Lifty, Sir Lift-A-Lot, No Crane No Gain, South Craneolina and The Reel Steel?

Answer: They’re the new names of five big ship-to-shore cranes at the S.C. Ports Authority’s Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal in North Charleston.

Each of the cranes was named as part of a “Name the Cranes” contest with area elementary students in third to fifth grades. The winners represent five schools and four municipalities, including two schools in North Charleston, which is where Leatherman Terminal is located, according to the ports.

“South Carolina Ports enjoys partnering with local schools to engage students and connect them to our operations and workforce. Our Names the Cranes contest is a really special way for students to connect with the port,” said Barbara Melvin, chief operating officer of SC Ports.

by Charleston Currents · 06/07/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

From Becca Hopkins' Expressway show, which opens June 4. Image via Redux.

FOCUS: Redux hosts opening of two new art exhibitions

Staff reports | The Redux Contemporary Art Center opens two new shows this week with one dedicated to a talented watercolorist and the other featuring works of several studio artists.

Charleston native Becca Hopkins offers a series of poignant watercolors June 4 to June 17 in her first solo show at Redux’s Gallery 1056. Called, “Expressway” and curated by Mia Loa, Hopkins’ art highlights the “immensity and artificiality of the Septima P. Clark Expressway stands in jarring contrast with the soft and settled 19th and early 20th century homes around it. It is an alien and alienating landscape that interrupted the human ebb-and-flow of mid-century Charleston,” according to the gallery.

A generation ago, the highway carved through a tight-knit predominantly Black community, displacing approximately 150 residences and businesses in its path. …

by Charleston Currents · 05/31/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

FOCUS: Charleston Law graduate wins prestigious fellowship

Staff reports | Michelle Mapp, a 2021 graduate of the Charleston School of Law, is one of 77 public interest lawyers who will be a fellow with Equal Justice Works, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that seeks to promote a lifelong commitment to public service and equal justice.

“Coming into law school, I knew about the Equal Justice Works because I knew Amy Armstrong who runs the S.C. Environmental Law Project, and she had done a fellowship and gotten her start that way,” said Mapp, who entered law school mid-career after serving as executive director of the S.C. Community Loan Fund. “In my second year at law school, I did an internship with the S.C. ACLU, and it sparked my interest in the right to counsel.”

by Charleston Currents · 05/24/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

Photo of this pond at the Willtown tract provided.

FOCUS: Charleston County’s Willtown tract gets permanent protection

By Skyler Baldwin, Charleston City Paper | The Nature Conservancy (TNC) announced Friday that the third-largest undeveloped tract of land in Charleston County is under permanent protection through a conservation easement that supports agricultural, forestry and recreational use.

The Willtown tract, 2,101 acres of undeveloped land, contributes to a 29-mile contiguous corridor of natural habitats for wildlife. The easement will keep the property under private ownership by TNC, promoting conservation and limiting its future development.

“Willtown is a very large property, but the impact of its protection is even larger,” TNC executive director Dale Threatt-Taylor said in a press release.

by Charleston Currents · 05/10/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

Sunset at Joseph P. Riley Jr. Stadium in Charleston.

FOCUS: Baseball season opens Tuesday to sold-out venue

Staff reports | After a year in Charleston without minor-league baseball, the Charleston RiverDogs open their season 7:05 p.m. Tuesday at The Joe with a game against the Myrtle Beach Pelicans.

“We’ll pull out all the stops for the first game of the season,” according to the ‘Dogs’ website. “A pre-game flyover, first pitch and national anthem from Mayor John Tecklenburg and a post-game light show are all part of our return.”

The game, presented by REV Federal Credit Union, is sold out, but there are tickets still available for other games throughout the week:

May 5, 12:05 p.m. It’s Perros Santos de Charleston Day in this Cinco de Mayo game versus the Pelicans.

May 6, 7:05 p.m. Thirsty Thursday returns in this match with the Pelicans.

by Charleston Currents · 05/03/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

PHOTO ESSAY: A walk through a maritime forest

Staff reports | With a flash point of the May 4 election on Sullivan’s Island being the future of a maritime forest, here’s a look at nature’s diversity that can be found, day in, day out. (More: 4/19: Maritime forest looms large over Sullivan’s Island election.)

“People think of the maritime forest as being just the tall trees, but maritime forests are successional, starting with sea oats and flowers and then shrub thickets, filled with myrtles, which lay down soil and protect tree saplings,” said Karen Byko, a resident fighting to protect the forest. “The last part of the forest to evolve are stands of tall trees. Throughout, the Sullivan’s Island Maritime Forest is filled with wetlands.”

Enjoy these photos by Byko and her husband, Realtor Rob Byko, who serves as our contributing photographer.