Road Trip Radio Report - Columbia, SC 20-22 October 2024

This road trip was supposed be in Upstate South Carolina to visit the Cowpens and Kings Mountain battlefields and take in the Autumn foliage, but unfortunately both Cowpens and Kings Mountain are still in the process of removing dangerous fallen trees from Hurricane Helene. Since the two parks were closed in the week before I left, I changed plans and visited Congaree National Park in Hopkins, SC, Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens in Columbia, SC, and Poinsett State Park in Wedgefield, SC on Sunday and Monday and returned to Savannah on Tuesday. Sunday, on the way up, I used I-95, but to get a bit different view and hear different things, I used US-321 to return to Savannah on Tuesday morning.

This road trip was across two beautiful Autumn days with the leaves in Midlands South Carolina beginning to turn. 

Coastal Georgia Military Monitoring Recap; September 2024

Due to a variety of issues, including less time around the radios than expected, September started out as a not too good military monitoring month but it turned out to be a good one, indeed. Most of September was uneventful, but the second half of the month saw the 71st Fighter Squadron and 7th Fighter Training Squadron conduct an exercise at the Savannah Combat Readiness Training Center/Air Dominance Center. I missed most of the first week, but I was able to listen to some of the second week. VMFA-312 and VMFA(AW)-224 at MCAS Beaufort swapped deployments in Japan in the middle of the month. The end of the month saw Hurricane Helene pass through Georgia and resulted in some hurricane evacuations by aircraft from Gulfstream and the 165th Airlift Wing in Savannah. Notable during September: 

Gulfstream Aircraft from their Factory and Service Center in Savannah evacuating to Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, PA on the afternoon of Thursday, 25 September 2024 ahead of Hurricane Helene passing through west Georgia on Thursday night and Friday morning.

Coastal Georgia was inconvenienced by Hurricane Helene; at home and work we were out of power for several days, landline phones were out of service for several days, and cable TV/internet is still out but damage to homes and people was limited. That wasn't the case for communities farther inland and closer to Helene's track. Those communities will dealing with the Helene's effects for quite some time; there as significant property damage; power will be out for an extended period, landline phones will be out for an extended period, and cellphone coverage remains spotty. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers, and if able, consider donating to a reliable and trustworthy organization doing work in those communities.