A child has drunk sweet-smelling shampoo. A senior has taken his wife’s prescription by mistake. A person comes to the emergency room after taking multiple medications at 3 in the morning. What to do? The Palmetto Poison Center is on-call 24/7 to help with cases from parents’ worries to questions from doctors unfamiliar with the effects of varying drugs taken together. March is Poison Prevention Month, and according to center Director Dr. Jill Michels, the Poison Center (1-800-222-1222) is

For the past two years, South Carolina has suffered back-to-back disasters. The thousand year flood in 2015 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016 damaged homes, took lives, and crippled businesses. One of the businesses hit the hardest by these events was farming. For farmers, the setbacks from the storms were massive. Federal Recovery Programs offered little help and insurance didn’t completely cover damages. Only what is harvested can be insured, so when disasters two years in a row lead to low yields

The Red Cross and National Guard may no longer be on the streets of Richland County, but that doesn't mean recovery from the devastating 2015 flood is over. In fact, hundreds of people are still out of their homes in the county according to Mike King, Richland County's Long-Term Disaster Recovery Chief. He says there’s been a lot of progress in recovery, but there's still a long way to go. Since October of last year, Richland County has worked with non-profits in the Midlands Flood Recovery

Off the coast of Hilton Head Island, the M/V OCEARCH sits stationary ready to catch sharks from twelve inches to twelve feet. The vessel is a temporary laboratory for scientists conducting research on the fish, from the way they see color to their mating habits. OCEARCH has done expeditions around the world, though this is the first time the organization has worked off the South Carolina or Georgia coast. They were pulled here by shark activity. Earlier this month, the M/V OCEARCH managed to

Since 1980, the University of South Carolina has built a national reputation as one of the top film preservation archives in the nation. Its Moving Image Research Collection has recently become the recipient of a significant national gift – the archival films of the United States Marine Corps. Tom McNally, Dean of Libraries at the University, says the school took the collection with no funds to preserve it, but with the faith that revenue donors could be found, which they were. Curator of

Live classical music is widely available in the Palmetto State, thanks to orchestras in at least seven South Carolina cities. But even the same music can be approached differently by different orchestras and conductors. And Morihiko Nakahara, conductor of the South Carolina Philharmonic in Columbia, and Edvard Tchivzhel, who conducts the Greenville Symphony Orchestra, say that musicians have more say in modern symphonies than in the past, when the conductor was “the law.” In addition, Nakahara

Update Laura Hunsberger recently spoke with Marilyn Gray, Midlands District Chair of the St. Vincent de Paul South Carolina Disaster Relief Program, and Dr. Lisabeth Medlock, Founder and Director of the Palmetto Project Community Flood Hub. Over the past year, Hunsberger has been following their work to provide furniture to families affected by the 2015 floods. In this interview, Gray and Medlock explain how their organizations, along with other community partners, developed a streamlined

Sandra Rabon unfolds a large piece of white paper on the floor of her home in North Charleston. It is her son Tripp's timeline for his life. Rabon reads aloud from the class project. "Here he has graduating from Clemson 2021 and starting his own business in 2022," she said. "Then sell company or give to son, go fishing with the grandkids and finally die in a rocking chair in June 2098." But Tripp never even made it to high school graduation. He died in a car accident in December 2015. He and a

Last October, Hurricane Matthew brought considerable devastation to South Carolina in the form of strong winds and crippling floods. For the military men and women stationed at Joint Base Charleston, this created unique issues. They needed to safely evacuate the military base while also providing help to those in worse conditions. The decision was made to have air force members by-pass emergency shelters and instead find alternative living accommodations, like family, friends, or even hotels.

In February and March 1945, one of the most significant battles of World War II took place: Iwo Jima, just 760 miles from Tokyo itself. Among the 70,000 marines assigned to the operation was 19-year-old Marvin Veronee of Charleston, a navy gunfire officer who went ashore with the Marines to call in fire from warships stationed off the coast when he found good targets. 75 years later, a 93-year-old Veronee recalls his duties in the battle, his narrow scrape with a Japanese banzai charge ( a