electrician in Lancaster, SC

Thousands of customers were without power Monday night in York, Chester, and Lancaster counties after a storm with heavy winds and rain pushed through the area, officials and utilities said.

As of around 7 p.m., more than 5,000 customers in the three counties were without electric service, according to outage maps from utilities.

Trees and power lines were down in most areas of York County, said Chuck Haynes, York County Emergency Management Director.

The area is served by three major utilities: Duke Energy, York Electric Cooperative, and the city of Rock Hill utilities.

Duke Energy reported around 1,000 outages in York and Chester counties before 7 p.m., according to the company’s outage map. Many of those were in Chester County, but there were also outages reported near York.

York Electric Cooperative showed about 2,500 outages in the three counties before 7 p.m., with the bulk of those in eastern York County, the outage map for the utility showed.

The city of Rock Hill showed over 1,900 customers out of power before 7 p.m., the city’s outage map showed. Affected areas included northeast and southern parts of the city, the map showed.

The storm knocked out power to tens of thousands of customers across Upstate South Carolina and in the nearby North Carolina counties close to Charlotte, the Charlotte Observer reported.

Flights out of Charlotte Douglas International Airport were grounded beginning at 5:15 p.m. The FAA extended the ground stop to 7:15 p.m.

Check back for updates.

If Lancaster County plans to build a new regional sports complex, leaders want it done right.

Lancaster County Council heard updated plans recebtkt for the 82-acre park planned within the Roselyn development. A park that could cost almost $73 million.

Project director Andrew Pack with the Woolpert refined the project Monday night from a similar presentation last fall. Further details are still needed. Dennis Marstall, county administrator, said groundbreaking could come in spring 2024 with an opening in summer 2025 at the earliest.

Pack proposed a $34 million first phase to include a baseball or softball complex, multiuse fields, trails, passive recreation areas and property expansion. The park is just off U.S. 521 to its west, east of Landsford Canal State Park.

A second phase would add a 50,000-square-foot recreation center for almost $39 million. Or, for the same price, that project could be split into a 25,000-square-foot recreation center and future expansion to double it for the same 50,000 square feet.

Marstall said splitting the recreation center could mean a few more years before the entire project is complete.

The county still needs to work out what programs the new park will offer to make final decisions on what will go there. There is a $750,000 agreement in place with USC Lancaster baseball to host home games on one of the park’s new fields.

The vision for the new park includes trails that could be used for cross country. Gyms for basketball, volleyball and pickleball, including tournament events. Tournament baseball or soccer, plus disc golf if the county acquires an adjoining 20 acres. A splash pad is planned, too.

Marstall said there are funding streams like hospitality tax to help with the park. A separate discussion of a new detention center and court facilities at about $90 million — a more detailed update is expected next month — also factors into county finances. The detention center could use capital sales tax, among other sources. The projects likely would require a 20-year bond, Marstall said, to pay for some portion of them.

“We have sufficient revenue streams,” Marstall said.

Even with the large price tag, council members on Monday said they aren’t looking to cut back on the park. Chairman Steve Harper said the park isn’t for him, but for the growing number of pickleball players and team sports athletes and community members who want something special.

“I just want to make sure that we do something a little different than everybody else, or a little bit better,” Harper said. “This needs to be the showcase for Lancaster County.”

Councilman Billy Mosteller pointed to a Hartsville trip leaders took to view a splash pad. Mosteller doesn’t want a small, afterthought splash pad at the Lancaster County park. Mosteller wants a significant attraction.

“They’re shipping bus loads to Hartsville to go to this thing,” Mosteller said. “I want them to go to Lancaster.”

With the gym space option, whether to build a larger facility at one time or split it and delay half, Councilwoman Charlene McGriff said the county needs to go with whatever best serves the recreation needs of a growing community.

“If we’re going to do it, this is the time we do it right,” McGriff said. “We will not have another chance.”

LANCASTER, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A new budget presented to the Lancaster City Council shows there won’t be any new taxes for city residents in next year’s budget.

“It was a little bit of a happy accident,” said Lancaster City Finance Director Kirk Medlin.

Lancaster neighbors will get to keep some of their money next year. The $38 million budget was presented during the council’s budget meeting.

South Carolina’s local option sales tax allows cities to offset some of the increases in the property tax amount.

“When we do that we can increase the millage that if we increase the credit factor, it’s not like a scale,” Medlin said. “It’s not like they’re both going up. One is balancing the other. It’s that they both move up the same amount then it ends up keeping the amounts flat for the taxpayer.”

Medlin says the city inadvertently built a reserve of about $1.5 million in the local option tax fund.

It allowed the city to increase the millage rate — which would normally increase what taxpayers pay — instead, the city expanded the local credit factor and kept property taxes flat.

“This is really sort of a one or two-year bridge to the growth that we have coming in 2026, ‘27, ‘28,” Medline said. “And so since we had that, though, we can use that this year and hopefully, next year to make sure that that money is, you know, that is staying flat and the taxpayers don’t have a situation where they’re having to see those increases right now until we can actually get that growth on the tax tables.”

Both the county and the city have seen massive growth in the last decade. The U.S. Census Bureau reported the county growing by nearly 9 percent from 2020 to 2022, making it the fastest growing in the Charlotte metro. And Worldpopulationreview.com projects a nearly 2 percent county population increase for 2023. Many of those new residents are heading straight for the city of Lancaster.

“We’ve noticed just a change in traffic,” said Angel Sams.

She says she’s happy to see people have an opportunity to save a little more money which will eventually help the economy.

Cheryl Miller can’t wait to see what her wallet looks like next year.

“I’m on disability, and the more I can keep in my pocket, the better off I am to pay the bills,” Miller said. “And those are outrageous enough as it is, but I don’t get to do but one monthly shop at the grocery store and I had to be very picky, but having the lower taxes is a big help.”

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Medline warns that just because the population is booming doesn’t mean they can’t automatically roll over on tax rates.

“I think a lot of people are expecting, ‘Well we’ve got some revenue now because they see these houses being built,’” he said. “But that’s not really the case. It’s something where it’s a little bit more down the road. And that’s why we’re looking at fiscal year 2026 as really the first year where we can say, here’s the growth, here’s the actual change in terms of revenues that we’re having this organic as opposed to an increase in the tax rate.”

LANCASTER, S.C. — Severe weather warnings help people make life-changing decisions in a matter of seconds, but Lancaster County has had trouble receiving those warnings, leaving many residents with questions when dark clouds gather overhead.

Counties across the country use the software without any issues. Channel 9 learned that oddly shaped southeast counties like Lancaster in South Carolina have trouble receiving those warnings and have to look to surrounding counties and their own emergency management to stay in the loop.

“Our shape is like a pan,” said Director of Lancaster County Fire & Rescue and Emergency Management Darren Player.

Channel 9 Meteorologist Austin Chaney spoke with Player, who said the shape isn’t the only issue; it’s also where the warnings come from. Counties that surround Lancaster get their National Weather Service warnings from Greenville-Spartanburg, while Lancaster gets its alerts from Columbia.

“Columbia issues those warnings, and that causes people confusion,” Player said. “People always used to ask me, does the weather just jump Lancaster County, or does it come across? Well, it does come across.”

The last example of this warning confusion happened on April 6. The National Weather Service in Greenville-Spartanburg issued a warning for Mecklenburg, York, and Union counties, but the NWS in Columbia did not issue the same warning.

Lancaster County resident Christine Hoving says these inconsistencies cause people to hesitate when it comes to taking cover or emergency measures.

“You, yourself, would second-guess, do I really need to take cover or take emergency measures vs. if you had the warning you would automatically be preventative and go take shelter,” Hoving told Channel 9

Chaney spoke with two NWS warning coordination meteorologists, John Quagliariello from Columbia and Tricia Palmer from Greenville-Spartanburg.

When asked about April 6, Quagliariello says that the date could’ve been handled better, but he also explained the process Columbia went through.

“On April 6, forecasters in Columbia wanted to watch the evolution of the storm through York County before issuing a severe thunderstorm warning,” Quagliariello said.

Tricia Palmer says the NWS’ goal is to provide warnings in a seamless, quality way.

“Our goal is always for warnings to appear seamless when they cross weather service area boundary areas,” Palmer said.

(WATCH: Cold weather damages peach crops in Cleveland County)

Lancaster is set to add a significant number of new homes and apartments.

Lancaster City Council met Tuesday night. There, council members faced decisions that could bring close to 500 new residences.

Homebuilder D.R. Horton applied last fall to annex property for a 273-home subdivision on the east side of U.S. 521, or Charlotte Highway, near the main entrance to the Arrowood subdivision. The property is more than 100 acres. It’s now up for several rezonings needed to make the plan happen.

Decisions related to the project on Tuesday involve rezoning almost 72 acres owned by Central Monroe at 2080 Charlotte Hwy., 29 acres owned by 521 Property at 2250 Charlotte Hwy., almost 14 acres owned by the Chisom family at 2081 Charlotte Hwy. (the Crow’s Nest driving range) and almost 13 acres owned by the Thompson family at 2120 Charlotte Hwy.

All those decisions will need a second vote, after ones scheduled for Tuesday. Those second votes are tentatively scheduled for Feb. 14.

Plans are to market the homes in the $300,000 to $390,000 range.

Close to that site, there’s a separate plan that city council finalized Tuesday.

Riverside Investment Options applied to annex a nearly 22-acre property on the south side of University Drive, across from the Arrowood subdivision. It’s immediately across from University Drive intersections with Havenwood Drive and Charles Avenue. The 192-apartment plan includes eight garden style buildings at three stories each.

The apartments will have outdoor patios that overlook shaded areas. Less than half the acreage would be developed, since much of it sits in flood plain. A nature trail would be built along the creek there. A submitted plan shows the entrance would come in line with the Havenwood and University intersection.

The city estimates the new apartment complex would be valued at $30 million.

Combined with the 72-acre Red Rose Village project council saw last month, the two projects up for consideration Tuesday would add to more than 700 new residences planned for the city.

As of the 2020 Census, the entire city had about 3,900 total housing units.