It was quick and it came without warning, witnesses said.

Inclement weather Sunday evening around 6 p.m. is to blame for uprooting a few trees, damaging homes, and tossing a trampoline into a tree.

Orenthal Smith, 30, of 2019 Felderville Road, said he was "scared to look out the window" after heavy winds ripped through his front yard.

He heard branches and twigs snap against his house, but he wasn't prepared to find an uprooted tree when he went outside to assess further damage.

"There was a lot of wind and that was it," Smith said, adding that the storm lasted only a short while.

Just up the road, the Kellers, at 2133 Felderville Rd., stood outside in awe of the damage created by such a sudden storm.

"It was quick!," recalled William Keller, 58.

His wife, Juanita Keller, 53, said rain and thunder preceded the sound of "rushing wind" that shook their home, overturned a swingset, and tossed a trampoline into a tree.

She said everything happened so quickly that she "didn't have time to think," but asked herself, "What is this?"

William Keller remarked that he hadn't heard wind roar, as it did Sunday evening, since Hurricane Hugo in September 1989.

Residents in eastern Orangeburg County probably would question the fact that there weren't any severe thunderstorm warnings or watches for the area late Sunday afternoon as Mother Nature threw a bit of an unexpected temper tantrum.

Scattered storms brought down numerous trees and power lines in areas around Santee, Vance, Eutawville and Providence, with falling limbs causing a couple of transformer fires, even though the National Weather Service wasn't calling for any nasty weather, said John Smith, the county's Emergency Services director.

Smith said his office, however, did not receive any reports of homes being damaged as a result of Sunday's storms.

T&D Regional Editor Carol B. Barker contributed to this report.

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