Criminal Defense Lawyer in Newberry, SC

These Covid tracking pages are no longer being updated. Get the latest information from the Centers for Disease Control, or find archived data from The Times’s three year reporting effort here.

Daily Covid-19 admissions in the Newberry County area

About the data

Data is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hospitalization data is a daily average of Covid-19 patients in hospital service areas that intersect with Newberry County, an area which may be larger than Newberry County itself.

The number of daily hospital admissions shows how many patients were admitted to hospitals for Covid and is one of the most reliably reported indicators of Covid’s impact on a community.

Total population

Ages 65 and up

Total population

Ages 65 and up

An updated vaccine is recommended for adults and most children. Statewide, 7% of vaccinations did not specify a home county.

Nearby hospitals

Share of I.C.U. beds occupied

About this data Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Notes: The hospitals map shows the average I.C.U. occupancy at nearby hospitals in the most recent week with data reported. The data is self-reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by individual hospitals. It excludes counts from hospitals operated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Indian Health Service. Numbers for hospitalized patients are based on inpatient beds and include I.C.U. beds. Hospitalized Covid-19 patients include both confirmed and suspected Covid-19 patients. The C.D.C. stopped reporting data on cases in May 2023.

How trends have changed in Newberry County

About this data Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Notes: Weekly county death data prior to Jan. 2021 was not reported by the C.D.C. and is sourced from reporting by The New York Times. Hospitalization data is a weekly average of Covid-19 patients in hospital service areas that intersect with Newberry County. Hospitalization numbers early in the pandemic are undercounts due to incomplete reporting by hospitals to the federal government.

Historical trends in Newberry County

The data in these charts has been archived and they are no longer being updated.

About this data Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data in these charts has been archived and they are no longer being updated. Weekly county case data prior to Jan. 2021 was not reported by the C.D.C. and is sourced from reporting by The New York Times. The C.D.C. stopped reporting data on cases in May 2023. Test positivity data is based only on test results reported to the federal government and is a seven-day average.

By Jon Huang, Samuel Jacoby, Jasmine C. Lee, John-Michael Murphy, Charlie Smart and Albert Sun. Additional reporting by Sarah Cahalan, Lisa Waananen Jones, Amy Schoenfeld Walker and Josh Williams. See a full list of contributors to The Times’s Covid-19 data reporting here.

About the data

Data on this page is reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Population and demographic data is from the U.S. Census Bureau. Hospitalization data is reported by individual hospitals to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and it includes confirmed and suspected adult and pediatric patients. The C.D.C. does not provide complete vaccinations data for some counties and caps its vaccination rate figures at 95 percent.

The C.D.C. may make historical updates as more data is reported.

The C.D.C. stopped reporting data on Covid cases in May 2023.

Several South Carolina residents have heard strange sounds recently, and reported it to law enforcement, according to the Newberry County Sheriff’s Office.

But no crimes are being committed and no laws are being broken because the noisemakers are cicadas, the sheriff’s office said Tuesday in a news release.

“We have had several calls about a noise in the air that sounds like a siren, or a whine, or a roar,” the sheriff’s office said in the release.

But it’s insects that appear each spring that are making the noise, according to the release.

Cicadas are a super family of insects that appear each spring, the sheriff’s office said. Cicadas can range from 0.75 to 2.25 inches in size, and are generally about the size of a paper clip, according to National Geographic.

The noise is actually male cicadas singing to attract a mate, and the sound can be deafening — potentially as loud as a chainsaw, according to Cicada Mania.

The sounds are magnified this year because in addition to the annual appearance of cicadas, a second large brood of the insects that have been gestating for years is also emerging, according to ABC News. This year’s double cicada event — which could include billions of the insect — has been called “Cicadageddon,” CNN reported.

The nymphs have lived underground for 13-17 years and now this time they are hatching, according to the sheriff’s office. These two broods of cicadas aren’t expected to emerge again at the same time until 2245, USA Today reported.

Cicadas have been spotted emerging near Dreher Island State Park on Lake Murray, The State previously reported.

“Although to some, the noise is annoying, they pose no danger to humans or pets,” the sheriff’s office said. “Unfortunately it is the sounds of nature.”

The EPA said not to use pesticides in an effort to stop the cicadas — “they are ineffective and can actually ward off the animals that eat cicadas,” USA Today reported.

In a breaking news situation, facts can be unclear and the situation may still be developing. The State is trying to get important information to the public as quickly and accurately as possible. This story will be updated as more information becomes available, and some information in this story may change as the facts become clearer. Refresh this page later for more updated information.

This story was originally published April 24, 2024, 8:26 AM.

Multiple trees down and car wrecks were reported due to the severe weather

NEWBERRY, S.C. — Newberry county officials are still checking for any damage in that area from the storm. Earlier today that area was under severe thunderstorms warnings and was getting heavy rain and high winds.

“we have six operations channels on our fire rescue and ems system and all six of those radio channels were tied up at one time today during the height of the storm,” Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster said.

Newberry county was one of the many in the midlands who was hit by today’s severe weather.

Sheriff Foster says the county started working on a plan earlier this week to prepare for the storm but says severe weather isn’t something new for Newberry county.

“We’re usually right in the midst of tornadic weather and bad thunderstorms. so we pretty much do this all the time throughout the year so we usually operate under the same conditions we just are now able to hone it in to certain areas of the county that we know might get hit worse than the others, ” Foster said.

Sheriff foster says the weather in Newberry county was not as bad as they expected but many community members were still impacted by the heavy storm.

“We’ve had numerous wrecks because when it rains like its rained people hydroplane, we’ve had some power outages throughout the county mostly in the Prosperity, Little Mountain area," Foster said. "We’ve had a couple houses that have had trees fall on them, damage assessment has not been done on that and we’ve had numerous trees in the road, but at present all of that has been cleared out and people are able to get around.”

Now that the storm has passed the sheriff says they will move to a more clean up focused process and will be checking in on communities member throughout the county.

“Our emergency service is almost entirely volunteers. volunteer firefighters, volunteer rescue squad members and they live in the communities they serve, wholly. So they know everybody in the community and they know who needs help so they will go check on them as well. that’s the beautiful part of living in Newberry county,” Foster said.

The free admission garden is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has recently undergone renovations in 2022.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — With today marking the first day of spring, it's a great time to visit the Wells Japanese garden in the City of Newberry.

The free admission garden, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, recently underwent renovations in 2022. Since then it has been a calm oasis for anyone to visit.

"Fulmer Wells drew from the Golden Gate Japanese park in San Francisco. He was an architect and went to Georgia Tech and then came home and began doing this Japanese garden," landscape architect Laura Dukes said about the origins of the Wells Japanese garden.

The garden was originally designed by architect W. Fulmer Wells in 1930.

"The Wells family that had a house up on Harrington St., This was a part of their garden. So the original design was meant to be viewed from a whole different area than where the public views it from now. So it was meant to be a part of his garden, so you would stroll down this hill and come and enjoy it," Dukes explained.

Forty years following the gardens creation, the Wells family donated it to the City of Newberry, according to the city's parks recreation and tourism Director Collin Shealy, "there was a period where it was under the city's maintenance and it had fallen off a little bit. So, we wanted to really look at putting some time and energy back into it."

The time and energy needed to bring the well's vision back to life started to come together in 2020, and in 2021 funding was secured and renovations began.

"We wanted to put a lot of emphasis on bringing the ponds back to where they were, they had gotten overgrown and so we really wanted to make sure we could bring those ponds back to life," Shealy said.

With help from Laura and others, the renovations fully embody the Japanese garden spirit–specifically the archway entrance.

"It has some unique aspects to it that are typically Japanese elements. For example you have one side that is larger than the other. You would open it for sunrise and sunset or you would open it the other way," Dukes said as she navigated how the entryway worked.

Although Wells wanted the garden to embody what a true Japanese garden would look and feel like, he insisted it included a South Carolina element.

"The South Carolina element that Fulmer well did add to it was having the bald cypresses in there and some saw palmetto. So you would never see those in a Japanese garden but that's our little South Carolina twist," Dukes said as she pointed the plants out.

Renovations were complete by June of 2020 and since, the park has had many visitors and according to Shealy, small intimate weddings as well.

"It's great that it really is able to receive some of the love and it's so meaningful for our folks here," Shealy concluded.

NEWBERRY – Newberry will soon welcome an influx of visitors for the eighth annual South Carolina Clay Conference (SCCC) and pottery sale held this year on February 23-24 at the Old Newberry Hotel. The conference is being held at the Edward Kyzer Newberry Firehouse Conference Center.

The SCCC pottery sale has become one of the largest pottery sales in South Carolina, with this year’s sale including the work of more than 40 potters. The sale is free to attend, and visitors are welcome to view the work and purchase anything they’d love to take home to their own collections.

The pottery sale is held at the Old Newberry Hotel, 1110 Caldwell Street in Newberry on Friday, February 23 from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. and on Saturday, February 24 from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.

“The quantity and variety of the work offered for sale, by the attendees to the conference is amazing,” said Marquerite Palmer, NAC program director. “Not only will you be able to view and purchase work of many in-state and out-of-state clay artists, but you will also have the opportunity to purchase the work of the 2024 presenters.”

While the pottery sale is open to the public, the conference itself is only open to those who have registered to attend. The three-day conference brings attendees from all over South Carolina, as well as additional states, to learn from presenters, demonstrating their expertise in clay.

Sponsored by the Newberry Arts Center (NAC), this year’s conference presenters include Jennifer McCurdy, whose work resides in collections of museums and patrons around the world, including the Smithsonian Museum’s Renwick Gallery, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Everson Museum of Art. McCurdy has been working with porcelain for over 40 years.

Christian Orthwein, an additional presenter, is a sculptor and potter who creates work for everyday use as well as realistic figural sculptures. She currently teaches at Bryn Athyn College, Pennsylvania.

A break-out session will be led by Alexis Gregg, Associate Professor of Studio Art and Wesleyan College in Georgia, on the importance of public art and architectural clay murals and structures.

For more information about the conference and the pottery sale, call the Newberry Arts Center at 803-321-1022, or visit the conference’s website at www.southcarolinaclayconference.com. You can also visit the NAC website at www.newberryartscenter.com.