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GEORGETOWN, S.C. (AP) — An intense late-year storm barreled up the East Coast on Sunday with heavy rains and strong winds that shattered rainfall records, forced water rescues from flooded streets and washed out holiday celebrations.

Authorities rescued dozens of motorists stranded by floodwaters in South Carolina’s waterfront community of Georgetown, Georgetown County spokesperson Jackie Broach said. More than 9 inches (22.9 centimeters) of rain fell in the area situated between Charleston and Myrtle Beach since late Saturday.

“It’s not just the areas that we normally see flooding, that are flood-prone,” Broach said. “It’s areas that we’re not really expecting to have flooding issues...It’s like a tropical storm, it just happens to be in December.”

The tide in Charleston Harbor hit its fourth highest level on record and was “well above the highest tide for a non-tropical system,” according to the National Weather Service.

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An ice storm bears down on the Pacific Northwest as East and South battle bitter cold

Another day of frigid wind chills and brutal cold across much of the U.S.

Rising sea levels driven by human-caused climate change mean even relatively weak weather systems can now produce storm surges previously associated with hurricanes, said Meteorologist Jeff Masters, co-founder of the Weather Underground. In South Carolina that’s worsened by natural subsidence along the coast.

By 2050, Charleston is expected to see another 14 inches (35.6 centimeters) of sea level rise, Masters said.

“In Charleston, this is the sixth time this year already that they’ve had a major coastal flood. Most of those would not have been major flooding 100 years ago, because the sea level has risen that much,” he said.

The storm was forecast to gain strength as it tracked along the Georgia and Carolina coasts, producing heavy rain and gusty winds before sweeping into New England by Monday morning, the weather service said. Wind gusts of 35 mph to 45 mph (56 kph to 72 kph) could bring down trees, especially on saturated ground.

There were numerous road closures in Charleston and across South Carolina’s Lowcountry, while stranded cars littered streets.

There were no reports of injuries or deaths in Georgetown County, Broach said. Gusty winds were strong enough to topple some signs and trees. Outdoor holiday decorations were tossed about, she said.

Water rescues also took place on Kiawah and Seabrook islands, according to media outlets.

Charleston International Airport had more than 3 inches (8 centimeters) of rain in 24 hours — almost five times the prior record set in 1975, according to the National Weather Service.

Farther up the coast, minor to moderate coastal flooding was expected Sunday, according to the National Weather Service office in Wilmington, North Carolina.

There were more than 31,000 power outages in South Carolina, according to PowerOutage.us, along with over 14,000 in North Carolina and more than 11,000 in Florida.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned of a possible 2 to 4 inches (5.1 to 10.2 centimeters) of rain, powerful winds and potential flooding in parts of the state. Flood watches were in effect in many locations in New York City, and high wind warnings were activated around the city and Long Island.

“We will get through this storm, but preparation is the key,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said. City officials told residents to expect several hours of rain and possible delays during Monday morning’s commute.

Colder air behind the storm will trigger lake-effect snow across the Great Lakes toward the Appalachians and upstate New York into Tuesday, the weather service said.

The storm dumped up to 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) of rain across Florida, inundating streets and forcing the cancellation of boat parades and other holiday celebrations.

The National Weather Service issued flood warnings and minor flooding advisories for a wide swath of the state, from the southwest Gulf Coast to Jacksonville. Major airports remained open, however, at the start of the busy holiday travel season.

“Today is not the day to go swimming or boating!” Sheriff Carmine Marceno of Lee County, on Florida’s southwestern coast, said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Coastal advisories were issued for much of Florida as strong winds churned waters in the Gulf and along the north Atlantic coast.

The storm could be good news for residents in southwest Florida who have been facing water restrictions and drought conditions heading into what normally is the region’s dry season.

The weather service also warned of 2 to 4 inches (5.1 to 10.2 centimeters) of rain in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, with the heaviest expected late Sunday night, and possible urban and small stream flooding and at least minor flooding to some rivers through Monday.

Forecasters also warned of strong winds in coastal areas, gale-force winds offshore, and moderate coastal flooding along Delaware Bay and widespread minor coastal flooding elsewhere.

The weather service said there is a slight risk of excessive rainfall over parts of New England through Monday morning, with the potential for flash flooding. Northern New England is expected to get the heaviest rain Monday through Tuesday morning.

At 19, working in a cupcake shop left Christina Miller with a bitter taste in her mouth: Early hours. Late nights. Heavy lifting. Bad burns she called battle wounds.

“I absolutely hated it,” said Miller. “I remember thinking I will never ever start a bakery business.”

Miller shelved a business plan to open a food truck one day and continued studying nursing at Georgia Southern University.

Now, the 33-year-old and her family are behind a dessert food truck and catering business based out of Ghost Kitchen on Dorchester Road. Miller’s goal: Serve up nostalgia by honoring the grandmothers who taught her everything. And along the way, she’s bringing forward a piece of Charleston’s culinary past that thrived in the streets a century ago.

“I want you immediately transported to being a child,” she said.

Named for matriarchs of the family — Bertha Miller and Eutellia Tisdale — Bert and T’s brings Gullah-Geechee candies back to the streets of Charleston and beyond. Groundnut cakes, monkey meat and benne candy, to name a few. Assorted Southern and Lowcountry desserts, say muscadine sorbet or sweet potato pone, join those sweets on their menu that’s open for online orders delivered nationally and picked up locally at Ghost Kitchen.

The truck, nicknamed Miss Blue, culminates a long journey for Christina Miller, with the pandemic acting as a catalyst for dredging up an old draft business concept.

‘Use what you know’

Year after year, state after state, city after city, Miller scoured bakeries in the nation’s largest cities. She sought knowledge as a student of the craft and for a taste of home.

She never found the latter. Instead, Miller, a pediatric nurse, found herself peppered with requests from coworkers and friends for those flavors.

Then the pandemic arrived. Schools closed in Los Angeles where the James Island native worked, which meant the rates at which children fell ill — runny noses, sore throats, broken bones — also declined.

The global emergency that kept people home gave her time like everyone else. The orders rolled in.

After moving back to the Lowcountry, she decided to revive the business plan kept on an old laptop.

In hindsight, it took a pandemic for her to see the signs the universe sent her, said Miller, who now lives in West Ashley.

“Use what you know. Use what your grandmothers taught you,” she said.

Miller made due with what started in late 2021 as a tent business at festivals, markets and other pop-up events. She was deliberate in building the business at every step, she said. But equipment delays and other hurdles hobbled the quest for a food truck, which finally made its debut on Oct. 27 at Firefly Distillery’s food truck festival. In the meantime, Miller expanded her delivery services and catering subcontract work, including providing sweets for an event at the International African American Museum.

As she grew the business, other nonprofit and grant-giving organizations saw value in her vision. In all, she received $30,000 in grants and prize money for her business concept, which helped pay for the $80,000 food truck.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - The South Carolina Aquarium is sharing an update on its “Good Catch Seafood Connection” initiative.

A few months ago, the aquarium teamed up with other organizations to create a solution that would offer people living in the Lowcountry greater access to local seafood.

Though the program is still in its beginning stages, organizers hope to expand to other cities in South Carolina.

To fight food insecurities in the Lowcountry each month the program sets out to feed between 500 to 550 people, but it has surpassed that feeding number to more than one thousand food-insecure people.

This program purchases 50 pounds of shrimp and 110 pounds of gutted and headed swordfish from the local business Cherry Point Seafood.

The seafood is dropped off at the nonprofit One 80 Place where their chefs and trainees prepare the food.

The Culinary Institute of Charleston Trident Tech also receives a delivery and the students filet and package the food to deliver it to the Lowcountry Food Bank.

Though the program has been successful so far, to expand it, organizers are figuring out how to fund it.

Other factors are identifying different organizations, fish houses, fishermen, distributors, and processors in other areas.

Conservation Director Dr. Sara McDonald says they are still working out any issues and kinks they run across.

“This is going to be to a two-year phase of working out any issues or kinks or, you know, and just making the process run smoothly and really testing the proof of concept to see how well it works and if we can apply this model to other areas of South Carolina”, McDonald said. “And other organizations and help provide a lean local sustainable, healthy seafood protein to other food insecure populations throughout South Carolina.”

McDonald said the initiative is also helping local shrimpers.

“Our good catch coordinator has been talking with the South Carolina Shrimper’s Association and talking about how our efforts are hopefully helping to increase or at least stabilize the local markets for the local shrimp,” McDonald said. “So, it is something that we’ve been working with them on.”

Now that it’s winter, fishing has stopped. The initiative will resume in April of this year.

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Near the back of a space that once sold vegan wraps and cinnamon rolls, Michael Toscano slices focaccia bread in front of a spit rotisserie, where whole hogs spin in circles, fat falling from their sides with every turn. Blond-shaded potatoes, a side at this new Charleston restaurant, collect the drippings until they’re submerged in the natural saltiness that only a locally sourced hog can provide.

Using a Sharpie to write down orders on a small notepad, the Le Farfalle owner then lays the halved pieces of bread on a cutting board. Some are topped with rolled, roasted and chopped pork — that’s the porchetta — from the pigs cooking behind him, purchased from a farm in Kingstree. Other slices are fattened up by simmered beef cheeks, hot soppressata or sliced prime rib, sprinkled with coarse salt before finding a final resting place inside the warm, cushioned bread.

When it comes to the preparation methods at Toscano’s da Toscano Porchetta Shop, which opened Dec. 18, the attention to detail is noticeable the second you walk inside the doors at 109 President St.

Opening day came less than 48 hours after a storm dumped 9 inches of rain on the Charleston area, flooding this corner of downtown near the Medical University of South Carolina. After a several-hour cleanup, Toscano still managed to sell enough sandwiches to roll through 20 loaves of bread hours after the shop’s debut. On a recent Friday, da Toscano Porchetta Shop sold 260 sandwiches.

The new counter-serve eatery is owned by Toscano and his wife Caitlin, who in 2016 left New York City to open Le Farfalle in the Beaufain Street building that formerly housed Leaf. The couple still owns that full-service restaurant and another, da Toscano, in New York City.

Bar Tab is a recurring column in The Post and Courier Food section that highlights a locally made or sold adult beverage.

Though I don’t personally celebrate an entire Dry January (hey, my birthday is in January), a lot of people are refreshing their bodies and minds, and trying to fulfill their New Year’s resolutions, by starting off the year without alcohol for the month.

I’m all for a good mocktail, and one supplier in town of elevated nonalcoholic spirits is behind quite a few of them, in Charleston living rooms and bars and beyond. Emily Heintz, founder of Sèchey, has a mission that extends past Dry January. Her bottle shop at 540 King St. is full of zero-proof wines, beer, spirits and more, and her focus is on making folks feel better while still indulging in the social urges to sip or the refreshing taste of a well-made drink after work.

I interviewed Heintz when she first opened the bottle shop downtown (and actually before that, too, when it was merely a dream back in 2021). And what better time to bring her up again than this month?

Her curated drink selections are even now in Target, a major retail success. Among them are brands you might recognize (or not, but that’s why I write these things), like Kin Euphorics, Ghia, Nope, Surely and De Soi. One thing these nonalcoholic drinks all have in common, beyond many of their anti-inflammatory and calming ingredients, are their pristine, modern, trendy branding, popping in pastel shades of lavender, ombre rainbow hues and more enticing packaging that certainly has this millennial intrigued.

A new beach-vibed restaurant coming to an iconic building in downtown Charleston soon will welcome diners.

Bartaco will officially open for dine-in and take-out lunch and dinner service Jan. 29 at 304 King St., but someone walking down the street after Jan. 18 might be able to pop in for a bite as the new dining venue eases into its full launch over the next week or so.

The Arlington, Va.-based company is bringing its 30th location to the historic two-story structure with an arched facade almost two years after first stating it planned to come to one of the top retail streets in the U.S.

With daily operations from 11 a.m. until midnight, the new restaurant hopes to evoke a blended beach culture of South America and Southern California with a bar on the lower level and dining downstairs and on a mezzanine in the back above the kitchen.

Trader Joe’s opened in Mount Pleasant in 2011. Thirteen years later, the California-based, German-owned grocer is looking to open a second store in East Cooper to relieve pressure from the often-overcrowded and parking-limited Johnnie Dodds Boulevard site.

CEO and co-founder Scott Lawton, originally from the Upstate and with a house in the Lowcountry, said bringing the establishment to the city he and his family visited often over the years has been on his radar for a long time.

“It’s like coming full circle,” Lawton said. “Bartaco feels like Charleston, and it’s not a cookie-cutter layout. It’s designed specifically for Charleston.”

The new restaurant, designed to match the vibe of the neighborhood, includes a huge mural of Spanish moss dangling from a canopy of trees.

He believes the dining spot will do well since “that side of King Street is underserved by a restaurant” and has a healthy amount of foot traffic. It’s also near the College of Charleston and generally caters to a younger demographic, according to Lawton.

Business

Founded in 2010, the restaurant doesn’t refer to itself as a Mexican eatery or a chain, but it has 29 other locations in 12 states and the District of Columbia, offering tacos, soups, salads, rice bowls and desserts, among other dishes.

An affiliate of Manhattan-based Gindi Capital bought the structure in March 2021 for $2.66 million. The New York commercial real estate firm later applied for permission to add a rooftop bar but withdrew the request. Bartaco has a long-term lease on the site, Lawton said.

The building, which is almost across from the Apple store, dates back to around 1898. It’s housed a variety of businesses, according to Historic Charleston Foundation archives. The most recent tenant was King Street Grille, which closed in 2016.

Built by Albert Sottile, it started as Riddock’s Arcade, which had a soda shop. Around 1913 it became a movie house called Princess Theater. That lasted until 1927 when it became the Louis D. Rubin Electrical Co. By 1934, it was called Carolina Electric Co. and Pickett’s House of Music.

The longest operating business at the site was Southern Furniture Co., which lasted from 1936-1972. In 1972, it became LeRoy’s Jewelers, and in 1997 Sonoma Café & Winery opened. King Street Grille launched in 2003.

New spread

Spread Bagelry has finally set an opening timeframe for its long-planned downtown Charleston location.

The Philadelphia-founded restaurant chain will offer its Montreal-style, wood-oven-fired bagels the week of Jan. 22 at 595 King St. on the ground floor of the student apartment building Hoffler Place.

By definition, a Montreal-style bagel is distinctly boiled in honey water and baked in a wood-fired oven. In comparison to New York-style bagels, Spread said its bagels have a golden brown crust and are sweeter and chewier.

After gaining popularity and a cult following in the greater Philadelphia area, chief operating officer Brooks Tanner and CEO Jamie Schrotberger decided to bring their bagel down South in 2023.

Retail

The company opened its first Charleston-area cafe in Oyster Park off Ben Sawyer Boulevard in Mount Pleasant last summer.

The company also has 12 locations in Pennsylvania and one each in New Jersery and Georgia.

The new shop will be open from 7 a.m. until mid-afternoon. Shops usually close about 2:30 p.m. as the small-batch bakery’s daily-made supplies are sold out.

Relocating

An Asian-cuisine restaurant in North Charleston is moving to a new location in Summerville.

Mei Thai Restaurant & Sushi Bar will reopen at 2 p.m. Jan. 24 at 605 Trolley Road. The eatery closed at 7685 Northwoods Blvd. in Northwoods Pointe on Jan. 14 to get ready for the move.

Its popular menu items include Thai, Filipino and sushi dishes. It also has vegan offerings and a children’s menu.

Vinyl revival

Monster Music & Movies in Charleston is marking its 20th anniversary and the revival of vinyl record sales with a storewide 20 percent discount Jan. 20-21.

Galen Hudson, who has served as longtime general manager of the shop at 946 Orleans Road, recently bought the West Ashley business, calling it the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

The shop originally was part of Manifest Discs & Tapes, an independent record store chain based in Columbia. In 2004, Manifest announced it was closing and sold off its individual stores.

Retail

The Charleston location was purchased by Bruce Carlock and Mike Wise of Nashville, who operated the Cat’s Music chain. The name was changed to Monster Music & Movies.

Hudson, who had worked for Manifest in the early 1990s, was overseeing three Cat’s stores in the Charleston area and took over management at Monster during an era of continually declining CD sales.

Monster participated in the first Record Store Day in 2007, and the resurgence of vinyl record sales has helped sustain the business.

Stepping in

An athletic footwear and apparel store that opened last fall in West Ashley is hosting its grand opening through Jan. 20.

Fleet Feet at 1401 Sam Rittenberg Blvd. in Ashley Landing Shopping Center is offering special events, prizes and giveaways throughout the week.

At 8 a.m. Jan. 20, the shop will offer a “Pancake Run” with several brands bringing shoes and apparel for participants to try out on the three-mile run. Pancakes and free prizes will be available.

Fleet Feet owners Amy and Chris Minkel and Wade Wiley have other stores in Mount Pleasant, Summerville and the Carnes Crossroads area of Goose Creek.

Thirteen years after opening in a former antique mall in Mount Pleasant, Trader Joe’s plans to launch a second Lowcountry location.

And it won’t be in Charleston or North Charleston or Summerville.

Nakia Rohde, a representative of the California-based, German-owned chain, confirmed Jan. 16 the new store will be in Mount Pleasant.

The grocery store spokeswoman declined to elaborate on details such as the specific location, opening time frame or if a letter of intent has been signed.

The company has been scouting multiple locations across the Lowcountry for several months to relieve pressure from the often-overcrowded and parking-limited location at 401 Johnnie Dodds Blvd., where Hungryneck Antique Mall operated from 1993 to 2011.

The Post and Courier has learned the grocer has focused on one site in particular: part of the former Bi-Lo supermarket building in Sweetgrass Corner Shopping Center near the Isle of Palms connector and Mount Pleasant Towne Centre as the site of the new store.

A spokesman for Continental Realty Corp., the Baltimore-based firm that bought the 90,000-square-foot Sweetgrass Corner in 2022 for $17 million, declined to comment and referred questions to a Trader Joe’s representative.

Continental Realty also owns the neighboring Mount Pleasant Towne Centre, which it bought for $147 million in 2020.