Hotels Are Filling Up As Hurricane Florence Evacuees Head Inland

YORK COUNTY, SC — Millions of people are evacuating the coast ahead of Hurricane Florence and looking for a place to stay in the WCCB viewing area. Many hotel rooms in York County are booked for the next few days, mostly with evacuees.

Some families, still need a place to go.

Jeff Curry spent Monday night boarding up the windows of his son’s house in Hilton Head, South Carolina. He got on the road at noon Tuesday, after a mandatory evacuation order. He’s heading to Virginia but worries what he’ll come home to.

“It’s more the rain and the winds because you have the flooding that comes on the shore so far so that’s our biggest concern,” says Curry.

Carol Bulwinkle left her house in Mount Pleasant for a hotel in Charlotte. She’s worried her storm shutters and the plywood on her windows, won’t be enough.

“Usually my only concern is damage to the roof and getting water damage inside that way because our house is up on stilts, so we’re in a flood zone,” says Bulwinkle.

Tuesday, many got caught in the traffic from the I-26 lane reversals, spending hours in traffic.

Yaturi Bolton and his family left Charleston early Tuesday morning. They started preparing for the trip after school on Monday. Bolton and his family are staying at a hotel in Rock Hill for the next two nights, but he can’t stop thinking about Charleston.

“I just want to go back home and still have everything there, and hopefully my friends and family and everything there okay,” says Bolton.