The first week of October found my wife Susie and me driving to a Southeastern Outdoor Press Association conference in Florence, South Carolina.Florence is about an hour south of Myrtle Beach.

Just two weeks before our arrival, the entire area along the east coast was slammed by Hurricane Florence. Just a week before leaving Indiana for our trip south, we weren’t sure if enough of the town would be left for our conference to occur.

For days, we had been watching all the weather news predicting a catastrophic storm smashing both North and South Carolina with Category 5 winds, plus rain and storm surges causing massive floods covering large areas of both states. Fortunately, the weathermen were wrong again.

There were strong winds, heavy rain and record surges, but not nearly to the extent predicted.

We crossed the border into South Carolina and continued east across the state. We began looking for storm damage as we drove along the interstate.

When we were about an hour west of Florence, we saw some broken trees in the median of the road. It continued for just a few miles.

That was the only storm damage we found.

We’ve had more limbs down in our yard back home.

We arrived in town, checked into our hotel, and spent the next two days driving around the county eating, shopping and sightseeing.

Our first stop was at the Florence Visitors Center (www.visitflo.com). We picked up literature there for a variety of local attractions, eateries, etc.

Near the top of our list were the numerous farmers markets in the area.

We also stopped at Young Plantations, a store full or flavored and natural pecans, baked goods and local foods.

We purchased a wide variety of their products including a bottle of scuppernong cider. (Do you have any idea what that is?) Then, we decided to take a tour along one of the Francis Marion driving trails.

Back many decades ago, I watched a TV show every week called “The Swamp Fox.”

Probably not many of you readers remember this, but Francis Marion was a general in the Revolutionary War. He was named the Swamp Fox because of his practice to have his troops attack the enemy, then retreat into the local swamps in and around Florence County.

His name can be found on many streets, buildings, etc. in the town.

Francis Marion University also is located there.

While at the Visitor’s Center, I even bought our grandson a book titled, “The Swamp Fox, How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution”, by John Oller. Benjamin will get the book for Christmas, after I read it first.

Our main reason for visiting South Carolina was to attend the annual conference of the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association. Besides four days of great eating, writing seminars and more, Susie and I were going to put on a metal detector hunt for all the attendees.

For our meal the first night, we visited eight downtown restaurants, tried their specialties, and moved on to the next. During the evening, we heard nearby sirens from emergency vehicles for nearly two hours. Later, we found this small town, half the size of Anderson, had a shooting while police were attempting to serve a warrant on a resident.

Before it was over, one policeman was killed and six more were shot. Four of these were still critical when we left town four days later. A person in the house was firing a rifle and continued shooting responders as they tried to rescue the downed officers. Finally, an armored vehicle was brought in to provide cover while the injured were recovered. Police were unable to fire on the shooter since it was known a large number of children were in the house.

On the last day of the conference, the attendees assembled at Moree’s Sporting Preserve for some outdoor activities. Susie and I buried about 700 wheat pennies and Buffalo head nickels, plus about 200 numbered prize tokens on a sand beach. We then taught any interested attendees (about 100) how to use the detectors and let them find the “treasure” we had hidden in the sand.

We finally returned home.

Soon after, we started watching Hurricane Michael come up through Texas, turn east and head right over the top of Florence, South Carolina. Being hit by two major storms and a horrific shooting of local law enforcement in less than a month was a terrible blow to this small, historic community.

The author may be reached at [email protected].