Roofing company in Little River, SC

Dung Nguyen had taken his son trick or treating on Halloween night in Little River.

The neighborhood was near North Myrtle Beach Middle School, where Nguyen’s son, Michael, or Mikie as he’s called by family, attends.

Mikie was with friends, and the area was busy that evening with other parents and children climbing in and out of vehicles along Highway 90, Nguyen said.

Nguyen was waiting at about 7 p.m. for Mikie to return to his vehicle that was parked along the roadway when he heard a thud. He looked out, heard screaming and called 911, he said.

“I did not realize it was my son,” Nguyen said. It wasn’t until car lights illuminated the area that terror filled the father.

“That’s when I recognized his clothes,” he said. “That’s when I recognized it was my son.”

The 14-year-old eighth grader had been hit by a vehicle, knocking him out of his shoes and sending him into the air. He landed about three car lengths from where the collision occurred, Nguyen said.

There were several witnesses to the accident, Nguyen said, including a teacher, who shielded other children from seeing Mikie’s body.

Nguyen and his wife, Jennifer, of Longs, have spent the last two weeks sitting beside their son, who is in the ICU at Grand Strand Medical Center in Myrtle Beach.

Mikie suffered a broken clavicle, lacerated kidney, three microscopic brain bleeds and a concussion, his parents said. He also couldn’t move his ankle or toes on his left leg, and only in the last day was able to regain some feeling. The teen will have to undergo occupational therapy as well as physical therapy to help him walk.

Mikie was excited to go trick or treating this year because this was the first time his parents allowed him to walk around by himself, his father said.

Asked what he remembers about that night, Mikie told his parents that he was walking when he saw lights and turned. That was it.

When Nguyen went back to the accident site the next day, he found part of Mikie’s ninja costume, a sword, in a bush on the other side of the road. They never did find his mask.

“Worst phone call of my life,” his mother said about receiving notice of Mikie’s accident.

The driver, Sarah Elizabeth Vaught, 55, of Little River, was arrested and charged with driving under suspension, failure to return license plate and registration and operating an uninsured vehicle.

She was booked into J. Reuben Long Detention Center on Nov. 1 and released on $1,242.50 bail.

A phone number for Vaught could not be found. An attorney was not listed for Vaught in the online court records.

Nguyen has a copy of the field report he received from the South Carolina Highway Patrol, which investigated the accident. The report lists Mikie, not the driver, as contributing to the accident.

Initial information provided by SCHP said that it appeared Mikie was crossing the road. However, Nguyen claims Mikie wasn’t in the roadway, but along the side of the road when he was hit.

There are no sidewalks along that area of Highway 90, Jennifer Nguyen said. For her, it’s concerning because there is a school nearby and neighborhoods.

Nguyen believes the driver should be held responsible, not the pedestrian. He said if that is how the law is going to see it, then students shouldn’t be allowed to cross the street to get to the school, or wait for the bus along the highway.

“I’m having a hard time understanding,” Nguyen said.

When it comes to South Carolina law, there is a responsibility of not only the motorist, but also the pedestrian on any roadway, according to Lance Cpl. Lena Butler with the SCHP.

If the pedestrian is not abiding by the law, or contrary to the law, “there’s always a possibility” that a pedestrian could be considered at fault, Butler said.

“In our investigation, we have to go with the facts,” Butler said. “Every investigation is based in facts.”

Nearly a year after Tyler Doyle went missing while duck hunting near the jetties in Little River, the case continues to take twists and turns.

The most recent is the announcement by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources that it has asked SLED to join in the investigation. It comes nine months after the agency ruled that no foul play was involved in the 22-year-old Loris man’s disappearance and it was a boating accident.

Here is a timeline of what has happened in the case since Doyle went missing on Jan. 26.

4:56 p.m. Jan. 26: Horry Fire Rescue posts on Facebook that they were dispatched to a watercraft in distress call in the area of the North Jetty in North Myrtle Beach. HCFR Marine Rescue team and North Myrtle Beach Rescue Squad crews were assisting U.S. Coast Guard in searching for any possible missing occupants.

5 p.m. Jan. 26: North Myrtle Beach Rescue Squad Water Rescue Team dispatched to a report of a vessel taking on water and sinking with two people on board. One was person was found and rescued from the north jetties, which links the Intracostal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean. The post says the search and rescue operation was conducted well past dark.

Jan: 26: Doyle and a friend go duck hunting at the Little River jetties. Doyle drops the friend on the north jetties, then goes around the north jetty and leaves duck decoys. Doyle calls the friend saying his boat is taking on water and the motor keeps on stopping. The friend calls 911, which notifies the Coast Guard. The friend sees Doyle on the bow of his boat, which the tide is carrying out to sea.

About 8:30 a.m. Jan. 27: U.S. Coast Guard District 7 posts on Twitter that they are searching for a 23-year-old man in the vicinity of the Little River Jetties. The man was last seen wearing a camo jacket and khaki pants while duck hunting on a 16-foot john boat.

Jan. 31: Doyle’s waders were found by Doyle’s aunt and others while off the North Carolina shore.

Feb. 9: SCDNR lead investigator Ronnie Floyd wrote in a statement, two weeks after the Loris man was last seen, that he had looked into theories suggested online that Doyle may have met foul play, but found no evidence and believes that Doyle drowned and is still missing.

Feb. 13: SCDNR issues a release that no foul play is suspected in Doyle’s case. The department said that phone records, along with the data location information, witness interviews, a boat inspection and recovered items indicate this to be a boating/hunting accident.

March 2: SCDNR released 911 tapes from the night Doyle’s boat sank while duck hunting.

March 16: The SCDNR released 11 folders with dozens of files detailing their efforts and materials collected during their search of missing boater Tyler Doyle. It includes the name of the friend, Christian Holden. They were obtained by the Sun News through a Freedom of Information Act request.

April: Doyle was a soon-to-be dad when he went missing. His wife, Lakelyn, gave birth to the couple’s child, according to social media posts. The little girl was to be named Paisley, according to Lakelyn’s Facebook posts.

May: The family announced that Doyle was added into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, a national public clearinghouse for missing people.

Dec. 5: The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division was asked to join in the case of missing boater Tyler Doyle. SCDNR spokesperson Stephen Fastenau said by text Dec. 5 that the SCDNR continues to be the lead investigating agency on the boating accident involving Doyle. “We have received various tips from the public about possible sightings of Tyler Doyle,” Fastenau said. “To make sure all resources are being allocated, we requested SLED to review the file and assist with missing person inquiries.”

This story was originally published December 18, 2023, 5:30 AM.

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — The Carolina Long Bay Project is undergoing early-stage surveying and analysis of two leased sites on a future offshore wind turbine project off the coast of Little River.

Duke Energy and Total Energies won a bid in May 2022 to be the lessees of two sites in the Carolina Long Bay area.

Duke Energy said it’s now preparing to put buoys in the water to measure things like wind speed.

“They’ll do a lot of assessments of the bottom habitats for essential fish habitat in the area,” said Paul Gayes, executive director for Coastal Carolina University’s Burroughs and Chapin Center for Marine and Wetland Studies. “They’ll likely cable corridors that are bringing the power in.”

The two leased sites sit about 22 miles off the coast between South Carolina and North Carolina.

According to Duke Energy’s website, the turbines could power nearly 375,000 homes using a total of 1.6 gigawatts of offshore wind.

Gayes said the surveying and analysis they do now will shape the construction and operations of the project.

“Florida gets a lot of hurricanes and Maine gets a lot of nor’easters, we get both,” he said. “And so, the design that goes into these things has to reflect the realities of which they’re going to be put into.”

Gayes said the waters between South and North Carolina are a good place for a wind farm and that it’s been studied for more than a decade.

“We have such a flat, low gradient shelf, you can go way offshore and still be in depths of water you can build easy traditional towers,” he said.

In Virginia, Dominion Energy has two offshore wind turbines already in use. It plans to have more constructed by 2026 to power more than 600,000 homes.

Gayes said regardless, wind energy — both on and offshore, is the future.

“There’s no perfect solution, but all these things can lead to an integrated good solution,” he said.

Duke Energy said the project is still in the planning phase, so it’s still looking into what exact areas would be powered by the turbines.

The project plans to be operational by 2035.

* * *

Adrianna Lawrence is a multimedia journalist at News13. Adrianna is originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and joined the News13 team in June 2023 after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in May 2023. Keep up with Adrianna on Instagram, Facebook, and X, formerly Twitter. You can also read more of her work, here.

The rich history of Little River includes a visit from President George Washington, rumored moorings from the pirate Blackbeard and evidence of Native American campsites from thousands of years ago.

Opinion

But what gives Little River its charm isn’t a pit stop by the former president or visits from notorious pirates – it’s the families and traditions of the community that have endured for generations.

Toni Bessent, 70, has lived in Little River for most of her life and said her family has been in Little River since around 1766.

“Little River has been here for so long and has so much history,” Bessent said. “I’ve tried to leave a couple times and I come right back. It’s just where my history is and it’s where I have lots of friends I went to school with who are still my friends today.”

This month, Horry County officials are remembering Little River as a historic place by unveiling a historic marker.

On Aug. 10, a memorial commemorating the history of Little River will be unveiled in a ceremony at 10 a.m. at the County parking lot at 4466 Mineola Ave. The South Carolina State Historical Marker is sponsored by the Horry County Historic Preservation Commission, which is funded by the Horry County Council. The wording is approved by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.

“When you do a state marker, it’s vetted,” Susan Platt, chair of Horry County’s Historic Preservation Commission, said. “We do the research, it goes to the state, they have a PHD who adds to your research, takes away and then works on what text will be on the actual marker. Then, it goes to yet another committee of staff members who are PHDs, and this is their career, who also look at it before they approve that state marker.”

Little River is widely regarded as one of the first permanent settlements in Horry County. According to an article in the Independent Republic Quarterly by late historian Catherine Heniford Lewis, British colonists had lived in the area since before 1734. Evidence that Native Americans fished and camped in Little River has been found from as early as the Middle Woodland Period (400-800 A.D.), according to Horry County Museum curator Abigail Geedy.

Platt describes the people of Little River as resourceful, using the expansion of Highway 17 as an example. The widening of the road from two to four lanes caused many plots of land with historic structures on them to be condemned to make room, but instead of allowing the demolition of the buildings, many residents opted to pick up and move the historic structures.

One example is the historic Parson’s Table restaurant, a former church that was moved from the intersection of Mineola Avenue and Highway 17 to its current location.

The unveiling of the historic memorial is the latest initiative to come from the county’s Historic Preservation Committee. The committee also began interviewing longtime residents for an oral history program last year.

News

Even with tourism, Little River’s character remains

The Little River economy, which, early on, was centered around commercial fishing, lumber and turpentine trade, shifted after the great depression. Recreational fishing, party boats and now casino boats drive the economy of the Little River docks off Mineola Avenue.

Wade Long, however, has continued his family’s tradition of fishing commercially in Little River. He owns the docks next to the Crab Catcher’s Restaurant, offering jet ski rentals to visitors of Little River but also supplying restaurants with fresh seafood through a family commercial fishing business. Long said his grandfather moved to Little River, fished and built boats and that commercial fishing on Little River has been a family tradition ever since.

“In my lifetime there hasn’t been a lot of change in Little River,” Long said. “I still talk to some people I worked for when I was here as a kid. Danny Juel rents from me and puts his boat in the dock. I worked for him when I was a young kid. He’s in his 60s now and he’s fished his whole life. The Juels and the Longs have both been here a very long time making their living off this waterfront.”

It isn’t just the casino boats and watersport activities that draw people to the Intracoastal. It’s also the character of a small fishing town that Little River still holds, which is evident from the docks on Water Front Avenue.

“Traffic from Highway 17 and so many people coming here from other places have changed the character a good bit,” Bessent said. “But I think it still has some of its original character and that’s kind of the draw of Little River, which is ironic because tourism is what changes the character.”

Horry County is home to many historic properties, Little River included. Structures that are historically significant can be recognized on the National Register of Historic Places and also the Horry County Historic Property Register.

“One of our highest priorities is to get structures on our local register because it adds a level of protection,” said Lou Conklin, a senior planner for Horry County and staff liaison for the Historic Preservation Commission. “If you’re on the local register, it does help you in regards to development because a developer can’t just purchase your property and tear your structure down.”

Soon, an app will be launched which will make more accessible the catalog of historic structures in the county.

“If you have all this history and great stuff and you can’t get it into the hands of tourists or new people who don’t know it, it’s worthless. It’s in a book or archives somewhere,” Platt said. “An app opens it up to everyone.”

LITTLE RIVER, S.C. (WBTW) — There’s nothing little about what they serve at the Little River Deli.

The portions, the flavors, the menu — all bigger than you might expect. Inside this little building, they do it big.

“We can really do a lot in a small space,” owner Amanda Flowers said. “We got a great crew.”

The day I was at Little River Deli, it was a slow day and the line was still five people deep.

Flowers, who took over the deli in February, said some days the line goes out the door. The deli has been here since 1999, and it’s still the same.

“That’s one thing that I really wanted to keep was just the heart of it and the thing that people have come to love,” Flowers said. When you take over a business, I worked here, so I kind of knew what the place was and what people were here to get, and I never wanted to change that.”

Flowers has worked here for 15 years; her dad’s been here since it opened.

“I love it,” Flowers said. “I went to college and I had a whole ‘nother career. I always worked here in between and weekends and stuff, and at the end of the day I chose this, hands down.”

Little River Deli has a lot on the menu, but they specialize in New York and Italian food. While not much changes, occasionally, something new is added.

“So we’re cooking our own, roasting our own roast beef now, slicing it and serving it on a sub or open face with gravy. It’s something that people are calling in for every single day now,” Flowers said. “So that was my touch that I added.”

While tourists are important to the Grand Strand, this place is important to the locals.

“Honestly, a lot of times we do get some tourists, which is awesome, but consistently it’s locals coming in, and it think it’s really cool,” Flowers said. “A lot of people will say that are finding us, they’ll say, ‘Oh my gosh I drive right past you,’ or ‘you have no idea how many times I’ve driven past and this is my first time in.’ And I think that it’s so cool to know that they’re finding this new place and they always come back.”

And she’s not kidding when she says they come back.

“It’s a lot of hard work. It’s worth it,” Flowers said. “I think it’s satisfying when you see people come in every single day. We have customers that come seven days a week.”

Little River Deli now does catering for any size event. They’re on Highway in, you guessed it, Little River.