Teacher, Husband, Children All Lost

The town of Ninety Six, SC, is in shock after a McCormick County council member and former teacher of the year, her husband and their two children were lost when their Piper PA-28 went down near Bradley, SC. Friday night.

Lost in the accident were:

• James Storm, 45
• Robin Storm, 44
• Brittany Storm, 15
• Bradley Storm, 11

"She taught both of my kids," said Gayle Price, an employee of Farris Restaurant, speaking of Robin Storm. She was quoted in the Greenwood, SC, Index-Journal. "A lot of people have been upset about it. She was a good lady. She came in here a lot to eat."

Teacher Glenda Vines was part of a phone-tree system that went into action among school district employees as news of the accident spread throughout Ninety Six.

"It was horrible," she told the Index-Journal. "It was just unbelievable. I knew our whole school would be affected. Our schools are very close-knit schools — we all have babies together, we all get married together — it’s a very united school system."

"We know we want to do something, but we don’t know what that is at this point," said Ninety Six Elementary School Principal Jane Calhoun. "Right now we are focused on how we are going to deal with things when we walk in the doors on Monday. "I can’t imagine going in Monday knowing there will be that absence."

Authorities said the family was flying in the PA-28 (file photo of type, above) from McCormick to Greenwood to drop off one of the kids. The flight was then supposed to continue to Marlboro County. Instead, the aircraft went down in woods near Bradley -- woods so thick that it took search teams more than an hour just to find the wreckage.

There's no indication at this moment as to why the aircraft went down. What the people of Ninety Six know is that the Storm family is gone, a loss that has torn deeply into the social fabric of their small town.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov