Say what you want on his politics, but McMaster is always a steady force during hurricanes

Gov. Henry McMaster doesn’t play around with hurricanes.

In six hurricane seasons, he’s been impressive every time a storm approaches.

During news conferences, he’s always got his team from the South Carolina Emergency Management Division together. He’s got meteorologists from Columbia’s National Weather Service by his side. A National Guard leader is usually with him. The sign language provider is limbered up.

He’s ready to guide South Carolina through the storm.

The press conferences, if a little jammed for reporters, are on point. Updates about the storm are regular and informative.

McMaster never induces panic with an emergency declaration that’s too early, and he never waits to declare one when the storm is on South Carolina shores. If interstate lanes need to be reversed for coastal evacuations, McMaster is talking with the stateDepartment of Public Safety and the Highway Patrol.

It may sound odd, but that genteel Southern voice of his is, dare I say, calming — almost as if he could speak the storm into easing up just a hair.

You can almost hear him saying: “Don’t go beating up on O-Ree County too much now, Mr. Hurricane.”

With a hurricane, McMaster shows he is aware a storm affects all South Carolinians, and conveys that he wants to ensure everyone was taken care of.

He’s also always has a smirk-worthy quip for a storm.

“Run from the water and hide from the wind,” McMaster said Wednesday during a news conference about Hurricane Ian.

McMaster has learned from the past, of course.

In 1999, then Gov. Jim Hodges ordered an evacuation of the South Carolina coast as Hurricane Floyd approached. People followed his order, piling in on Interstate 26 west until traffic could no longer move.

The gridlock on I-26 from Floyd was still being remembered in 2016 as South Carolina readied for Hurricane Matthew. The Post and Courier of Charleston that year remembered the traffic “nightmare” in which people were “trapped in their cars for hours.” For some, it took nine hours to go 100 miles.

The Charleston City Paper recalled that “the opposing lanes of the interstate remained mockingly empty.”

Initially, Hodges had not ordered that the eastbound lanes of the interstate be reversed. After the miscall, he changed course and allowed cars to travel west in the eastbound lanes. It was too late for Hodges’ reputation. The hellish evacuation is often cited as a reason Hodges lost re-election in 2002.

This year, a disastrous hurricane response from McMaster might result in Democrat Joe Cunningham drinking beers, blowing fog horns and frat-boying it up in the governor’s mansion.

So far, McMaster has stood tall as storms approach. In a time when everything seems to be politicized, every South Carolinian should be thankful that McMaster’s hurricane response hasn’t blown it.