MT. PLEASANT, S.C. (WCIV) — Bruce Savage's day started out like any other on August 11.

He took his dog on a walk around the pond at the end of Barbarian Way, which has been known to have some alligators in it.

“It’s a very safe neighborhood. We’ve known about the alligators,” Savage said. “It’s kind of a thing in the neighborhood; Can you spot the alligators?”

But when he took a turn in the back end of the path around the pond, that’s when his day took a turn for the worse.

“All of a sudden I heard a whoosh and then I saw Hannah’s (his dog) back end in the mouth of a gator.”

Grabbing the tail of his terrier Hannah, Savage held onto the leash, pulling her out.

“The whole thing was probably less than 60 seconds. The whole event,” Savage said. “I can’t hear anything, literally my whole system shut down. My ears shut down, I couldn’t hear anything. Except for myself screaming dogs names. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Hannah's tail was bitten off and she sustained other injuries to her back side, but Bruce did not receive any injuries from the gator.

“My kids were like, 'Well, did you look back,’ and I was like, 'Heck no,' I didn’t look back. I was running as fast as it could.”

Bruce and his family called animal control, but the gator was still not located.

The company Gator Getter Consultants searched the lake for hours residents told ABC, but didn’t find anything.

With the gator still being out there, Savage is even more worried for the future.

“I’m worried about kids. I mean a dog, I love Hanna. But it’s kids being around the water in their prime hunting time.”

Since 2016 there have been three gator fatalities recorded in South Carolina to which there were none reported before then. All of those cases happened in the Lowcountry.

The Department of National Resource’s Regional Public Information coordinator David Lucas said that he has noticed the increase in injury reports. He says there is a simple reason behind it.

“I think it basically boils down to that our population is increasing and development within alligator habitat in the coastal part of South Carolina are increasing,” Lucas said.

But Lucas also said that although summer is a hot time and a point where most people think gators would come out, it usually doesn’t happen this late into the summer.

“We get a lot more calls in the early spring and summer because alligators are more active in that period.”

Despite the unusualness of the situation, Savage says that he doesn’t have any plans to go back walking by the pond anytime soon.

“I just don’t think it’s smart to walk along there, and I don’t think Hannah will ever go there again.”

DNR also said that if anyone is near a wetland to stay 10 feet apart for their safety.

“If you are looking at fresh water in the Lowcountry, if you are looking at a pond or a wetland, a fresh water area, you are looking at alligator habitats,” Lucas said. “The operative thing to remember here is that you are talking about wild animals. And they are unpredictable.”

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCIV) — Friday was a monumental day for the Snowden community.

“We have an amazing, huge project probably bigger than anything else is going on in America,” said Josh Wright, President of the African American Historic Settlement Commission.

The Long Point School has been a fixture in Mount Pleasant since 1872 on Long Point Road. It now has a new home in the Snowden community.

“This is almost in the center of Snowden, you know, and this is the community that was served by this building,” said Michael Allen, partner of the settlement association.

It was once a school for the African American community in Snowden for almost 50 years. Now the Long Point Schoolhouse will now be turned into a Cultural and Educational Center to reflect the history of the area.

“It's a recognition that this is an important site in the American experience, in the African American journey, and it needs to be protected, preserved and interpreted in this ground,” Allen said.

The Long Point Schoolhouse has a new purpose in a new location, but it still has the same memories for some of these community members.

“Just about everybody in this neighborhood has ties to the school. You know, their parents or grandparents,” Claudia Holmes Mazyck said.

The Holmes family has had generations grow up next to this building.

“We grew up in that house, we played in that house, our entire life,” Doris Holmes Brunson said.

In fact, Flora Small Holmes, the grandmother of this family, had the land of the Long Point Schoolhouse passed down to her.

Her grandson Michael said he made it into a home decades ago.

“I lived there for about 1981 to '86 out. Then after that, he just rented it out to family members and people in the area,” Michael Holmes said.

As the family and other community members watched the building move down the street Friday, the wheels started turning and the conversations started flowing.

“In the summertime, as kids when school was out, our grandmother would come take care of us,” Michael said.

John Wright is an army veteran who served two tours overseas but says. Today, he said, trumps all of that.

“This school is bigger than those two conflicts and anything I think I’ve ever done in my entire life. This is probably the biggest initiative on the biggest project that I’ve ever been involved with,” Wright said.

It’s a day that this community says will leave an impact for years to come.

“From this day forward, a pathway has been set, a course has been laid out, that we will protect, preserve and honor the legacy of those who are here,” Allen said.

Renovations on the school are said to take around a year. The center will hopefully be up and running by 2023.

The Charleston County unemployment rate improved somewhat during the late summer.

MOUNT PLEASANT, SC — The U.S. posted its weakest job recovery month of the year in September, with just 194,000 non-farm jobs added to the economy.

The September jobs report was even worse than that in August, when 366,000 jobs were created, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The national unemployment rate dropped 0.4 percentage points to 4.8 percent despite the September disappointment.

The latest available local unemployment figures are for August; that rate improved since July in the Mount Pleasant area and continues to be lower than it was the beginning of the pandemic.

The Charleston County unemployment rate was 3.8 percent in August, down from 3.9 percent in July. That reflected some improvement from August 2020, when the unemployment rate stood at 6.0 percent.

The August unemployment rate in Charleston County was lower than the South Carolina rate of 4.2 percent, according to the latest local figures from the BLS.

Nationally, 17.4 million jobs have been added back to the economy since April 2020. Still, the country is down 5 million positions (3.3 percent) from pre-pandemic levels.

The jobs report is based on survey data from mid-September, which may have skewed negatively due to several crises in the country, according to The Washington Post. At the time there were 150,000 coronavirus cases per day in the country; the number has since dropped by nearly half.

Parts of the country were also recovering from the devastating Hurricane Ida, and California is still dealing with the effects of ongoing wildfires.

Average hourly wages continued to climb in September, with a 17-cent gain to $30.85. Hourly wages have grown for six months in a row as employers look to fill vacant positions.

Employees have been more willing than ever to leave their employers. A record 4.3 million employees quit their jobs in August, according to the BLS.

The leisure/hospitality and professional/business service industries led the way for September job gains with 74,000 and 60,000 jobs, respectively. Retail trade jobs increased by 56,000 jobs after two months of little change.

Editor's note: This post was automatically generated using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program. Please report any errors or other feedback to [email protected].

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCSC) - An indoor entertainment venue could soon be coming to the northern end of Mount Pleasant in the Carolina Park community.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ventura Sports Group, Mark Schuster, says this facility on Faison Road would be anchored by an eSports stadium, which will be used for other events throughout the year.

“Charleston’s a destination. As they continue to build these eSports venues around the country, people are going to want to go to places they love going to. And what’s a better place to go to than Charleston and Mount Pleasant,” Schuster said.

The project is on 29 acres of land, near Highway 17. Schuster says the eSports stadium will be 120,000 square feet with a 1,600 seat auditorium inside.

He says there will also be space for classes where you can go learn to play eSports. Plans also show a convention hall inside the eSports venue.

Schuster says the targeted audience for eSports is primarily those ages 13 to 35, but it continues to see more and more growth.

Schuster says around the venue will be retail stores, restaurants, and possibly a hotel.

He says they plan to host entertainments like boxing, mixed martial arts, and concerts in the area throughout the year.

Schuster, also the former General Manager of the Charleston RiverDogs, says there are only five other eSports stadiums like this one in the United States right now. Those are in Philadelphia, Arlington, Las Vegas, Oakland, and southern California.

The eSports venue in Mount Pleasant is in the planning and development stages right now. Schuster says they are trying to move quickly, and hope to see it open by the end of 2023, or the first quarter of 2024.

He says the cost of the project will vary based on what all comes around the space. He says they have received interest from folks about also having a post-production film studio here, to allow for more movie making in town. He says that has not been approved yet, but if it is included, the total project cost would be about $82 million.

He estimates it would bring about $10 million annually in tax revenue. He says that’s not to mention the number of jobs, both construction and full-time/long-term positions, it will bring.

Copyright 2021 WCSC. All rights reserved.

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCBD) – Ben Byrd was excited to move into a new Mount Pleasant apartment.

“You know, it seemed like a really good deal,” Byrd said. “We were told, ‘you are going to be on the water in a nice new place,’” he added.

Byrd toured a unit at Edgewater Plantation off of I-526 and leasing agents quoted him $1,600 a month in rent. “It was beautiful, that is what they sold us on- they said this is the exact unit you are going to move into,” he said.

But less than a week before move-in day, Byrd said he was told he had to move to a different unit and that his rent would be going up to $1,900 a month.

“They called me and said, ‘hey, there is a problem with that unit, they are going to switch you to a nice newer more renovated unit,’” he said.

Byrd visited the new unit to take measurements days before he was scheduled to move in. “It was just like appalling. It smelled like urine and cigarettes, soft spots on the floor. There was trash everywhere,” he said.

He jotted down a list of necessary repairs. His primary concern was floor repair for the soft spots in the hall and kitchen. The management company said repairs would be completed in two days but Byrd said the crews never came.

“I started emailing them about it and didn’t get an answer. As we were unpacking the floor collapsed and I cut my foot open,” he said.

Four weeks went by without any repairs. News 2 contacted Edgewater Plantation’s parent company, Carroll, about the promised repairs and within days the floor was repaired.

“Resident experience is a top priority at Edgewater Plantation, and we take all resident matters very seriously. We have been in the process of assessing all subfloors throughout the property and making all necessary repairs. As a result, we have enlisted a qualified contractor to evaluate what subfloors need to be replaced and are working through what needs to be done. Mr. Byrd was notified prior to moving in that this project was currently underway. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, there have been delays in receiving the materials and the materials that were proposed to repair the subflooring were inconsistent with the current plan. As a result, our team provided a temporary solution so Mr. Byrd could occupy the space until the proper flooring arrived. It is important to us to provide the best resident experience and offer full transparency. We are working with Mr. Byrd to find a solution and to quickly provide the updated subflooring that was discussed prior to move-in.”

Edgewater Plantation Management

Byrd also reported growing piles of trash from the alleged valet trash that is included in rent.

“Additionally, we recently replaced the trash compactor due to issues that were brought to our attention. Unfortunately, the pandemic has created staffing challenges for every business, but we have invested in additional resources to help ensure the property is well maintained for residents, guests and staff. We encourage our residents and staff to always place trash in the compactor instead of placing it in front of it.”

Edgewater Plantation Management

News 2’s investigation revealed Byrd is not alone. Edgewater Plantation’s parent companies, Arium Living and Carroll LLC, have racked up more than 100 complaints on the Better Business Bureau.

Both companies have earned an “F” ranking on the site.