Roofer in Summerville, SC

SUMMERVILLE — A train derailment the morning of Jan. 10 prompted fears of a potential toxic chemical spill and led authorities to temporarily issue a shelter-in-place directive, which was then lifted by mid-afternoon.

A Norfolk Southern train derailed at 9:51 a.m. at 2450 West 5th North St., the local name for U.S. Highway 78, near industrial truck manufacturer KION North America’s Summerville plant.

Authorities shut down Highway 78 on the northern end of town, from Industrial Road to Jedburg Road. Dorchester County Fire Chief Tres Atkinson said that hazmat teams from Norfolk Southern and around the region assessed the scene.

“We have determined that there's no immediate danger to the public other than immediate areas that we’ll be working to mitigate the cars that have come off the track,” he said.

Atkinson said the scene was turned over to Norfolk Southern for remediation and asked area residents to “give those people room to work and do their job and get actual scene cleaned up.”

He noted that the fire department is “maintaining a presence on scene with Norfolk Southern” in case of an emergency.

Though the shelter ordered lifted, officials encouraged residents to avoid the area. Highway 78 will “remain closed for the duration of the incident,” a Facebook post from the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office said.

Atkinson said the highway would remain closed overnight and that Norfolk Southern had estimated the cleanup would be done “sometime in the morning” Jan. 11.

Kasandra Jenkins, a Norfolk Southern spokesperson, said a tank car involved in the derailment carries chlorobenzene, a toxic chemical, but was empty.

Mayor Russ Touchberry posted a video to the town’s Facebook page informing residents of the derailment and cautioning them to avoid the area. He told the Summerville Journal Scene, a Post and Courier affiliate paper, that he was told the train was “carrying a small amount” of chlorobenzene and there was “potential” for a leak, which is why the shelter-in-place was issued.

Chlorobenzene, a flammable liquid, is widely used as a solvent, degreaser and chemical intermediate in producing dyes, pharmaceuticals and pesticides. It affects the central nervous system with prolonged exposure.

Sheriff’s office spokesperson Steven Wright said Highway 78 will reopen once the impacted railroad tracks reopen. Until then, he said, deputies will be patrolling the area to make sure nobody gets too close to the scene.

“We all have that curiosity sense, but it really delays the process if there are citizens trying to see what's going on,” Wright said. “So, we just encourage people to stay away through the area until it is clear and everything's back up.”

Many of the industrial businesses in the area are regularly closed on Saturdays. Dorchester Paws, which is down the road from the derailment site, operated normally. Adoption Supervisor Jimmie Tedder said that while there wasn't a major impact, animals were kept inside most of the day as a precaution.

When Joslyn Scahill, an office manager at Inspire Gymnastics on Industrial Road, spoke to The Post and Courier around 4 p.m., the sound of train horns could be heard through the phone.

"Did you hear that? I guess it's moving again," Scahill said.

The derailment happened a mile-and-a-half away from the gym. Classes were happening at the time as road closures made getting in and out of the area more difficult.

"It was scary when everyone's phones went off because of the emergency alert," Scahill said. "It said to shelter in place because of an active incident. A lot runs through your mind when you read that. You think of active shooter situations, not a train derailment."

County spokesperson Erin Pomrenke told The Post and Courier that officials aim to “provide the most relevant, accurate information to residents, especially in situations with public safety concerns.” She noted that after the initial alert went out, more updates were posted on the county’s social media pages and provided to media outlets.

“After incidents occur, such as today’s incident, the County assesses approaches to continue to provide our residents with quality service and communication,” she said.

Recent history of train derailments

Norfolk Southern’s most-famous train derailment was Feb. 3, 2023, near East Palestine, Ohio. That incident involved 38 derailed cars. The train was carrying toxic chemicals and caught fire. Residents within a one-mile radius were evacuated. Norfolk Southern had to remove more than 167,000 tons of soil and more than 39 million gallons of water from the site due to pollution from the derailment.

A lawsuit filed February 2025 claims that seven residents, including a baby, died as a result of the toxic disaster. The National Transportation Safety Board blamed a defective wheel bearing for the accident.

A 2023 Federal Railroad Administration examination of Norfolk Southern’s safety record over 10 years documented 163 derailments and an average of two hazardous material leaks per year.

For example, a Norfolk Southern train accident in Rossville, Tenn., train yard released about 500 gallons of maelic anhydride, a chemical that can damage eyes and the respiratory tract. The report said that in 2018, a 16-car Norfolk Southern derailment in Loudonville, Ohio, released 30,000 gallons of hazardous liquified petroleum gas into the air.

Norfolk Southern had two train derailments last year.

In February, 20 cars derailed near Attica, Ohio, and leaked alcohol and ethanol, though the local sheriff’s office said there was no public danger. In August, about 10 Norfolk Southern cars derailed near Harrisburg, Pa. The city’s fire chief said there were no hazmat dangers and no injuries.

The Federal Railroad Administration has warned the industry about the dangers of a trend toward smaller crews and longer trains. The latter cause more wear on tracks and are more difficult for a crew to manage.

On Jan. 9, about 12 cars from a Union Pacific train derailed near the Texas-Louisiana border. News organizations report there were no HAZMAT spills.

CHARLESTON — A group of Hardee's restaurants in South Carolina caught up in a financial dispute between the operator and the big burger chain have been shut down but could reopen.

A search of the Hardee's website showed that six locations, mostly in the Charleston region, are now listed as "temporarily closed."

Another that went dark in West Ashley earlier this month is permanently closed.

All seven restaurants that had been operated by franchisee Arc Burger were in Charleston, Goose Creek, Summerville, Moncks Corner, St. George, Georgetown, Walterboro and Hampton.

The Hardee's in Ravenel, which is operated by different group, remains open.

The fast-food chain told USA Today this week that Arc Burger chose to shutter all 77 of its restaurants across eight states. The decision followed a lawsuit alleging the operator fell behind on its financial obligations, it said.

“These closures are a result of Arc Burger’s failure to cure its defaults under its franchise agreements, despite solid sales and our continued attempts over the course of many months to reach a resolution that would keep these restaurants open,” Hardee’s said in a written statement.

According to a complaint filed Nov. 21 in the U.S. District Court in Tennessee, the franchisee began missing payments a year ago. Hardee’s alleged it's owed more than $6.5 million in fees, rent, royalties, advertising charges, training costs and other expenses.

Hardee’s terminated Arc Burger's franchise rights in September, while allowing the company to keep operating the restaurants until they could be sold. The arrangement required the company to stay current on its payments, but it failed to do so, according to the lawsuit.

Earlier this month the Hardee's on Savannah Highway in West Ashley was shut down for good along with a Beaufort restaurant that wasn't owned by Arc Burger.

The temporary closings in South Carolina followed. The fast-food chain told The Post and Courier this week that it will try to reopen the six locations as soon as it can.

At least three other Hardee's in North Charleston and West Ashley have been permanently closed over the past few years.

Arc Burgers is part of San Diego-based High Bluff Capital, a private equity investment firm that owns Church’s Chicken, Quiznos and Taco Del Mar. It bought the Hardee's franchise for about $16 million in 2023 after the previous operator failed.

Arc Burger's other restaurants were in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Montana and Wyoming. High Bluff Capital did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Dec. 24.

A growing chorus of parents, former teachers and one board member kicked out this past spring are raising concerns about governing irregularities, financial transparency, academic rigor and discipline policies at a charter school in Summerville.

Summerville Preparatory Academy (SPA) first opened its doors in August 2024 and is part of a larger family of charter schools under the Charter Schools USA (CSUSA) umbrella, which handles the school’s back-office operations. Founded in 1997, CSUSA is a for-profit management company with nearly 100 schools in four states: Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Louisiana.

When The Journal Scene began its investigation and reached out to school leaders, we were referred to Colleen Reynolds, who represents CSUSA. Reynolds runs Edge Communications, a political and communications consulting firm based in Fort Myers, Florida.

Charter schools in South Carolina are required to be registered as a charitable organization. Neither SPA nor its management company, CSUSA, obtained nonprofit status before the school opened its doors. Instead, they were claiming to use the nonprofit status of SPA’s governing board, Charter Education Board of South Carolina (CEBSC), for fundraising purposes as a tuition-free school. While CEBSC is registered as a 501©(3) organization with the IRS, South Carolina law requires nonprofits to register separately with the state as charitable organizations.

The Journal Scene obtained a letter from the Office of the Secretary of State dated Sept. 8, 2025, addressed to CEBSC notifying them of a violation of the Solicitation of Charitable Funds Act. In a follow-up letter dated Oct. 11, 2025, CEBSC was assessed a $2,000 administrative fine for remaining in violation. When asked whether the penalties remain in place, we were initially told the board never received the letter. According to Reynolds, the board’s president, Samuel Rivers, had no memory of seeing the letters, even though they were sent to the same address listed on its tax records. Rivers later confirmed the address problem was fixed, and the administrative fine was reduced to $400. When asked about the reason for the reduction in fines, Shannon Wiley, General Counsel and Public Information Director for the Office of the Secretary of State, said it was because this was “the organization’s first violation.” Reynolds previously said she did not know the reason, but it was possibly the result of a conversation between the state and CSUSA South Carolina Director, Lane Morris.

As of Dec. 8, CEBSC filed its nonprofit registration statement, but it was returned because it did not include its most recent annual financial report as required by S.C. Code Section 33-56-30. The Journal Scene followed up with the Office of the Secretary of State to confirm whether the corrected files were submitted and is awaiting a response.

Some administrators at SPA came from Berkeley Prep, which is currently in litigation with Charter Schools USA after severing ties with the management organization earlier this year. According to Stewart Weinberg, president of Berkeley Charter Education Association, the board for Berkeley Prep, CSUSA was in breach of contract. Under CSUSA’s management, Weinberg said, there was “low student achievement, lack of supervisions and evaluating [of] principals, and financial transparency.”

The school uses the “village model,” which is a teaching method that groups children by ability levels across subjects. The model requires children to receive a personal learning plan in the lower elementary grades, but many parents have told the newspaper that their child never received one.

One frequent criticism of SPA is its inconsistency with curriculum implementation. According to a former first-grade teacher who spoke on condition of anonymity, the school did not have a curriculum at the start of the 2024-25 school year. Though CSUSA oversees curriculum for all of its schools, SPA did not obtain the materials until October 2024. Even then, the teacher said, no training was received on how to use the curriculum, and with almost every teacher in their first year, implementing the village model curriculum proved challenging.

“When it came down to it, CSUSA didn’t provide us any formal training on how to do it,” the teacher said. “We were just kind of told, you split the kids, however they need to be.”

At the beginning of the previous school year, the first-grade level had only four teachers for a class of 100 students. The teachers did not see a practical way to follow the village model without help. Instead of adding to the roster of first-grade teachers, they started to leave. According to our source, one teacher left the second week of school. A longtime substitute was hired to replace the teacher, but, without any formal teaching experience, the remaining three teachers were left to fill the gap. Another parent whose child attended second grade this school year reported the class having gone through at least five teachers since school started in August.

When asked about this high teacher turnover, Jean Castelli, principal at SPA, said there are multiple reasons teachers leave.

“The turnover that we’ve had has been a result of different reasons,” Castelli said. “It could be health, it could have been personal, or family reasons.”

Castelli also said the village model is not for every child or teacher, even though teachers are receiving regular, extensive training. To that, the former first-grade teacher said the model could work for students if more effort were put into teacher training.

“The majority of kids could handle it if it were implemented correctly … I would say [it’s] a pretty small population of kids where we teachers [would feel] like this is definitely not right for them. I think it’s really just a lack of training.”

Reynolds was also asked about SPA’s current implementation of the CSUSA curriculum and about the certification of SPA teachers. While she stated teachers at all CSUSA schools are certified, she noted the only exception would be substitute teachers. Reynolds was unable to provide any clear answers at the time as to the current ratio of certified to substitute teachers. However, one source claimed the number of uncertified or first-year teachers is higher than what SPA or CSUSA is disclosing.

One parent, Jessica Wright, said she pulled her child after volunteering in the school and witnessing poor classroom management, skipped bathroom breaks, a lack of certified-staff supervision of students and what she described as excessive disciplinary practices.

“I would be left in the classroom by myself with 30 kids,” she said.

Multiple parents have also raised concerns on social media about safety at the school and student access to guns at home.

Some have voiced concerns about student safety during afternoon dismissal. Not all students are being escorted to vehicles in the car line, parents said, and car tag numbers are not being verified using the tags on the students’ backpacks.

In terms of discipline, multiple sources reported their child having to run laps outside as a form of physical punishment, often missing recess. The students were mostly in second and third grade. Sometimes the whole class would lose recess for one student’s misbehavior.

Running laps was discussed in the first Parent-Teacher Committee (PTC) meeting of the current school year. According to parents who attended the meeting, Castelli was briefly present and assured them that all teachers would receive discipline training and that students would no longer be required to run laps as a form of physical punishment. However, when asked about students running laps, both Reynolds and Castelli denied that it had happened. Reynolds called the claims that SPA teachers have students run laps as a form of physical punishment not accurate and “a bit of a stretch.”

Castelli echoed this, noting that students often confuse running laps with walking them. She said students will sometimes take a “reflection walk” with a teacher to discuss the inappropriate behavior and what to do differently.

Summerville Journal Scene is also investigating SPA’s and CSUSA’s compliance with charter governance standards as mandated by South Carolina law. According to state law, all South Carolina charter schools must have an authorizer to oversee the school’s performance under the charter contract. SPA applied to the Limestone Charter Association and was approved. However, Limestone shut down earlier this year, leaving SPA and other charter schools without an authorizer. Rivers confirmed SPA applied for a replacement authorizer before the Dec. 15 deadline. The school will be transferring to S.C. Public Charter School.

With increasing scrutiny surrounding SPA and other CSUSA schools, such as Discovery in Myrtle Beach, the conversation about stricter charter school laws to ensure accountability remains a priority for education leaders and parents across the state.

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCSC) — A developer is proposing to annex more than 700 acres in Berkeley County into the town of Summerville, creating opportunities for over 1,200 single-family homes but raising concerns among residents about traffic, safety and rural character.

Nash-Nexton Holdings LLC presented its vision for mass urban expansion at a recent town meeting, proposing to turn rural land in Berkeley County into a connecting community from Nexton to Summerville. The project would affect parcels of land near Sheep Island and Wildgame Road.

Mayor Russ Touchberry said the annexation aligns with Summerville’s existing growth patterns.

“Summerville has about 55,000 residents in it, but there are 250,000 residents with the Summerville postal address,” Touchberry said. “What people think is Summerville, and actually the areas outside of Summerville are growing at a much faster rate than what’s growing inside of Summerville, which is why we want to participate in shaping growth, and this annexation is important for that.”

The project would include a mixture of land uses, including residential, medical offices, commercial and institutional services.

Mark Smith, a New Hope Community resident, said he opposes the development.

“Well, if I wanted to live in town, I’d move to Summerville. I don’t want to live in town,” Smith said. “It’s just destroying everything out there. And they need to put a halt to it. We don’t want the amenities that they’re offering.”

Residents expressed concerns about traffic, medical services like EMS and wildlife impact.

Smith said longtime residents moved to the area to avoid urban development.

“People move there to get away from this kind of mess. And they don’t want it,” Smith said. “They don’t want an action, and they don’t want all these houses.”

Touchberry said the town can handle the increased population and services.

“I think it provides us an opportunity to have more efficient services. It provides an opportunity along the commercial corridor of Nexton Parkway. To have folks able to live and work closer together,” Touchberry said. “So I think it creates positive quality of life changes if we all work together.”

Council members listed changes they would like to see in the proposal, including a school coordination clause, a tree protection ordinance, and complete streets at every intersection with shared-use paths.

The first reading has been approved, but the project has not been fully approved. The second public hearing is scheduled for Jan. 15.

SUMMERVILLE — Four blocks in downtown have been designated as the state’s 13th official cultural district by the South Carolina Arts Commission.

The new Summerville Cultural District spans both sides of South Main Street. Artists, musicians, photographers and craftspeople live and work throughout the fast-growing district and regularly share their work at markets, exhibitions and community events.

“Downtown Summerville has been a vibrant hub of culture, art and history for decades,” Russ Touchberry, the town’s mayor, said in a press release. “We hope this designation invites others to come and enjoy the beauty and hospitality of our greatest asset, the talented people who live, work and play here.”

The Public Works Art Center anchors much of the district’s visual arts scene, hosting close to 20 exhibitions each year featuring more than 500 artists, along with open-mic poetry nights and community shows. Artist studios and classes are also offered nearby at Art on the Square, Nailed It DIY Studio, Fancy Fingers Piano Studio and People, Places, and Quilts.

Downtown streets close on the third Thursday of each month for a festival that draws more than 1,000 people in support of local musicians and artisans. The district also hosts free public music through organizations such as the Community Music Collective, Summerville DREAM and the Summerville Orchestra, along with more than a dozen annual productions by the Flowertown Players community theater.

Artwork for sale is also displayed in more than a dozen downtown spaces, with regular book signings and author readings at Main Street Reads and the nearby Timrod Library.

The South Carolina Cultural Districts program works to attract artists and creative businesses, encourage economic development, foster local cultural growth and strengthen community identity. Cultural districts are defined as walkable areas with a concentration of cultural facilities, activities and assets, often alongside restaurants, parks and other commercial spaces.