Burns said the choice is not between growth and stasis but between managed growth and decline.

“You could be in a county in South Carolina where there’s nothing to do, there’s no development, and either you move or you are too poor to move, and it’s just not a good situation,” said Burns. Council’s task, he said, is to walk that line in full public view, wrestling with the same pressures that confront “every council in South Carolina in the growing areas.”

The allowance is meant to cover expenses of the job outside the Statehouse. Legislators tried to approve their first pay increase in 30 years as part of the state budget. An amendment inserted during floor debate in the Senate raised that monthly pay from $1,000 to $2,500 — in other words, from $12,000 to $30,000 yearly.

Gov. Henry McMaster in his final State of the State address Wednesday urged legislators to build on past efforts with more money for roads, deeper cuts to income taxes and universal full-day kindergarten for 4-year-olds, saying an excellent education for all children is essential to keep South Carolina thriving.

South Carolina’s longest-serving governor used his ninth speech to the General Assembly to celebrate the initiatives he successfully advocated for during his tenure. Those triumphs include pay raises for teachers and law enforcement, funding for police officers in every school, 400,000 acres of land conserved across the state and scholarships offering free tuition to some 120,000 South Carolinians attending the state’s technical colleges.

For Anderson and the adjoining foothills, more than two inches appears not just possible but likely, while heavier, localized bands may carve narrow corridors of deeper accumulation, in the sort of arbitrary favoritism that winter storms are known to show.

Clemson’s president, Robert C. Edwards, had spent months in hushed conversation with business leaders and politicians, engineering what one historian would later call a “conspiracy for peace” to avoid another Ole Miss. Edwards sent postcards to more than 100 leaders in the state asking if they would actively oppose the admission of grant. While not exactly indicating support, most vowed not to aggressively oppose the move.

The loss of Eaton is a loss of one whose life bridged continents, courtrooms, and the everyday intimacies of small-town justice. Goetz Benedict Leopold Max Elsus left behind a legacy etched in fairness, resilience, and an unyielding faith in human dignity.

For those who knew him, he also leaves two enduring memories: a never-ending love for his wife Carolyn who died in 2013 and tireless his sense of humor.

In the Upstate on Monday, which got the brunt of the storm, few trucks and cars could be seen on normally busy streets. Upstate officials said the area had not been hit by an ice storm of this magnitude since 2005.

Small cities were like ghost towns as most businesses remained closed, though some stalwarts like QT stations and Waffle House were open, enjoying a moderate business. Arts events at Greenville’s theaters and the Peace Center were canceled over the weekend.

The Ice King, a more insidious visitor, favors a different sort of spectacle. His appearances—in 1999; twice in 2000; again in 2002 and 2004; the twin blows of January and December 2005; then 2015—were measured not in the depth of anything pretty but in downed lines, splintered pines, and the sudden, humming silence when a whole subdivision loses power at once. The 2004 storm alone left roughly $11 million of damage in its wake, a reminder that a quarter‑inch of ice can do what a foot of snow cannot. It is no small irony that most of these ice storms have arrived in just the past quarter‑century, as if to correct anyone who thought winter here had grown softer with time.

In the Town Honea Path, institutions do not always announce themselves with marble plaques or brick façades. They grow more quietly, on soft soles and green thumbs, arriving as a handful of women and a flat of annuals. The Dogwood Garden Club began in just such a way in the early 1940s, when war was tightening its grip abroad and the Upstate’s textile mills still set the rhythm of life. Its charter members, looking out over the town’s streets and mill houses, seem to have decided that whatever the world was doing, Honea Path would at least be beautiful.

Yes, the freezing rain is still in the script, though the latest models potentially suggest less of it, and for a shorter time, than the original, more operatic predictions. The frozen stuff, which was supposed to bring an extended visitation, now looks more like an unwelcome houseguest: a wintry mix slipping in well after midnight, lingering through much of Sunday, and then leaving behind a mess that may prove more troublesome than the event itself.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 18-to-3 to advance the bill, which also creates the option of displaying numerous other historical documents in classrooms and allows schools to accept volunteer chaplains.

Alongside the 11-by-13-inch posters or framed copies of the Ten Commandments, all teachers would also have to display a “context statement” about the history of schools teaching the text.

Here’s the most recent roundup of shelters and emergency numbers that might be useful in preparation for the upcoming storm.

Under state law, businesses and individuals are prohibited from charging “unconscionable” prices for necessities such as food, gasoline, lodging, and emergency services like tree removal during a declared emergency. The rule remains in effect until the state of emergency is lifted or terminated. Violations are considered misdemeanor offenses, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and 30 days in jail.

What the Department of Transportation could do, however, is add new lanes with tolls, often referred to as “choice lanes.” A bill introduced this week by Senate Transportation Chairman Larry Grooms would allow the Department of Transportation to do that, as long as the intention was to reduce traffic.

Sanders’s path into elected office is wound tightly around his family. West Pelzer’s former mayor, S.C. Rep. Blake Sanders, is his son—a reversal of the usual generational script that people in town like to point out. During Blake’s last term, residents urged Rick to run, but, he says, “I really just had too many irons in the fire.”

Only after time and circumstance aligned did he decide to run for council, and then, almost immediately, for mayor, when that seat opened. In the span of two months, he found himself elected twice, first as a council member and then as the town’s chief elected official, a compressed political education in a place where almost everyone already knows his name.

“We see a lot of different people,” Phillips said. There are those who are “literally homeless,” carrying their entire lives in backpacks or plastic bags, and there are others who have a house but no functioning heat, no electricity, no way to make the cold relent once they close their front door. For them, Hope Missions is less a shelter than a last resort against a particular kind of Southern winter, one that brings damp, bone‑deep chill. The center exists “to provide a warm and safe place for folks,” a phrase that sounds understated until one imagines the alternative.

On Thursday Anderson County council declared a state of emergency, which, layered atop the governor’s statewide disaster order, was less a piece of theater than a key, unlocking additional funding and the possibility of federal assistance if the ice storm developing on weather maps reached the threshold of a declared disaster.

In a meeting at the historic courthouse with online connections to those who lead first responders, Emergency Management Director Josh Hawkins offered the latest from the National Weather Service that sketched out a storm expected to be neither sudden nor dramatic, but relentless, as he informed and organized those who will be charged with meeting the potential challenges.

The show, on display through February and likely into early March, gathers work from more than two dozen artists—from high school students to established professionals—showcasing a spectrum of talent that stretches across generations and artistic styles.

The measure amends the Anderson County Code of Ordinances to spell out intensity standards and traffic impact analysis requirements for certain projects. The changes are intended to address design capacity on county roads and to clarify when a traffic impact study must be completed as a condition of development approval.

Rep. Beach said he and other conservative lawmakers have studied how other states manage road funding, pointing to Minnesota’s merit-based transportation leadership and focus on preservation as a model for South Carolina to follow. He said the group has discussed creating elected regional road commissioners responsible for maintenance in specific areas, rather than relying solely on appointees in Columbia.