The story behind the red Jeep left in the rough surf stirred up by Dorian
On Thursday morning, the sound of bagpipes filled the air in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, as Joshua Kipp, dressed in a black rain cape and a glengarry hat, played a requiem for a red Jeep Grand Cherokee. The notes of "Amazing Grace" floated through the air, mixing with the sound of the thrashing winds and crashing waves that threatened to claim the trapped car in Dorian's approach.
The abandoned vehicle had drawn the attention of beachgoers as well as the media on Thursday as Dorian skirted up the southeastern U.S. coast. At the time, no one knew where it came from, but the internet held onto it as comedic relief desperately needed from the heartbreak and horror Dorian had caused.
Witnesses in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, were treated to an unusual scene on Sept. 5, when they saw this abandoned Jeep vehicle stuck in the Atlantic Ocean. You can see the vehicle get pummeled by storm surge.
"We had been watching this Jeep on the news and seeing memes on Facebook and decided it would be appropriate to give it a proper sendoff before it gets towed away by either a truck or Dorian," Timothy Kipp, Joshua's brother, told Storyful.
The Myrtle Beach Police found the owner, who had reached out to WMBF News to explain he had loaned the car to his cousin since the weather had been so bad with Dorian lurking off the coast.
"That morning, he thought it would be cool to go on the beach and take a quick video of the sunrise before the storm came," the Jeep's owner, who preferred not to be identified, told the station. "So, he got on the beach and started driving it. I guess there's that runoff there and he didn't realize it was in front of him, he was looking out the window when he went off and got stuck."
The owner of the car explained that his cousin had tried to find someone to tow the car out of the wet sand, but the conditions were too bad for anyone to reach the Jeep. The owner had no idea about all the commotion surrounding the Jeep until the police made the call, and the owner promptly called his cousin to find out what was up.
At the moment, the owner's concerns lie in the red Jeep likely being totaled.
Dorian passed 45 miles south of Myrtle Beach on Thursday, Sept. 5, around 5 p.m., EDT, as a Category 2 storm. By Friday morning, North Myrtle Beach had racked up almost 10 inches of rainfall from the storm.
"The Jeep is off the beach," the Myrtle Beach Police Department declared on Twitter along with a video of a backhoe towing the liberated -- though slightly battered -- SUV away. Parts of the bumper seemed to be missing pieces, and the driver's window had been broken.
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