Roof Repair in Bluffton, SC

With seven words from celebrity John Legend, a Bluffton and Hilton Head performer advanced into the next round on the NBC television singing competition “The Voice” on Monday night.

“The winner of this battle is Stee,” Legend decided.

In the show’s second night of “battle rounds,” in which teammates perform a duo and only one is declared the winner, Stee performed the bilingual version of the latin pop song “Tacones Rojos” with Willie Gomez. The song, originally released in 2021 by Sebastian Yatra, was popularly remixed by Legend and Yatra together the following year.

The performance was one that divided the four coaches. Both Reba McEntire and Niall Horan, while noting Stee’s stage presence and voice, said they would have picked Gomez to win. Coach Gwen Stefani sided with Stee.

Ultimately, though, it was up to Legend to make the call.

“Stee, your vocal was truly flawless,” Legend told the singer, praising his ability to connect with his audience. “That’s a very powerful skill to have.”

Stee and Gomez had a chance to rehearse with coaching from Legend before they took the stage for the segment shown on Monday’s episode. The next time Stee will perform on the show will be in “the knockouts,” scheduled to broadcast in early November.

In the knockout rounds, Stee will choose his own song and perform individually. One of his teammates also will perform a solo, and Legend will have to choose one competitor to continue on the show and one to go home.

Those who survive the knockout rounds later will perform during live broadcasts. Each week, the audience will vote to save their favorites, and the performer with the lowest number of votes will leave the competition until there is one winner left.

Stee, who uses the single name, is the son of Hilton Head music legends Sterlin and Shuvette Colvin. He regularly performs with his band The Ear Candy at Kind of Blue, the family’s restaurant.

The band’s next scheduled performance begins at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27, at the restaurant at 19 Dunnagans Alley on Hilton Head.

“The Voice” airs at 8 p.m. Mondays and 9 p.m. Tuesdays on NBC. Episodes are available for streaming the following day on Peacock.

As Bluffton residents woke to a sunny morning, clean up efforts began to clear the various debris littering the streets. Amid the pine straw, tree limbs, Spanish moss and Palmetto fronds littering local yards and roadways, coastal tides also remained high.

There were multiple clean-up efforts around the town.

Community members came together to clean up after Idalia impacted the county with strong winds and flooding. They helped clean around local churches and neighbors were helping neighbors.

“I think they love the day,” said Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka. “It’s not hot, so there’s no reason to get in a bad mood.”

Of those who were not cleaning up fallen debris, many individuals around Old Town Bluffton were spotted enjoying the cooler than normal weather out on their golf carts and walking their dogs.

Christie McKenzie and 8-year-old Harrison McKenzie helped clean up fallen debris and palmetto fronds around Alljoy Road and the “Chisholm Cottage” as tree work was occurring behind the residence to clear and remove trees.

During his cleanup efforts, Harrison didn’t hesitate to talk to nearby community members as he continued to drag along various branches, moss and other fallen debris. His opinion on the matter, “I did not like that hurricane,” he said as he carried a “Harrison-sized” palmetto frond above his head and heaved it into the pile of other collected debris.

Luckily, there wasn’t too much damage from Idalia in Bluffton. The Bluffton Township Fire District were only called 10 times between 1 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. Wednesday about fallen trees or debris, according to the Fire District’s spokesperson Stephen Combs.

“Overall we dodged a bullet and thankfully everyone escaped rather unscathed,” said Combs.

As of noon on Thursday, all trees that were blocking roads were cleared, said Combs. However, Combs noted that the fire department does not have authority in gated communities and trees may still be blocking roads in them.

“We’re blessed, but I just always feel we got to be prepared,” said Sulka. “We take the steps, thinking it’s going to be a hit.”

The National Weather Service forecasts that Idalia will be at hurricane strength as it reaches southeast Georgia late Wednesday afternoon, then becoming a tropical storm as it tracks along the South Carolina coast. NWS also stated a flood watch in southeast South Carolina will be in effect through Wednesday.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency Tuesday ahead of potential impacts caused by Idalia. McMaster warned residents should take precautions despite the state likely missing the "worst of Hurricane Idalia’s impacts."

Track the storm here:How will Hurricane Idalia impact SC?

Hurricane Idalia:Gov. McMaster declares State of Emergency for South Carolina

Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka shares letter to residents

Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka shared a letter to residents of her city.

Dear neighbors,

Thank you for preparing for Hurricane/Tropical Storm Idalia.

Historically, the busiest time for storm activity happens in this area from late August through mid-October. Unfortunately, this storm activity is following its normal pattern and timeline.

As Mayor, I hope to give you the information you need to feel informed and keep you safe. Storm preparation is a group activity, and we need you to be mindful and take some actions for the best possible outcome.

Let me assure you that Town leaders and staff are on regular calls throughout each day to keep our communities as safe as possible. As we say each year, “We may be able to put a person on the moon, however, we cannot predict a hurricane with precision.” Nature has the final word about hurricanes, their path, and timing. Information is constantly changing – the antidote to a lack of control is to control what you can and be proactive.

This storm is most likely to bring standing water, power failures and downed trees.

Hurricane Idalia: List of things to do before storm hits

Hurricane Idalia: Town of Bluffton offices closed

Hurricane Idalia: Utility Contacts

Please keep posted to the Town’s social media platforms and we will be communicating new information as we receive it. Stay safe, Bluffton!

Warmly,

Mayor Lisa Sulka

USA Today contributed to this story.

If you think the Bluffton bakery Cupcakes 2 Cakes looks charming enough to be in a Lifetime movie, you wouldn’t be alone. It seems a Lifetime film crew agrees.

The bakery, located in Berkeley Place near Cinemark Theater off Buckwalter Parkway, was used as a filming location earlier this year for an upcoming television romance titled “The Royal Bake Off.”

Here’s the plot synopsis from IMDB.com: “The rivalries of bakers Allie and Marily intensify when the royal prince of Samavia rolls into town looking for a royal baker. When Allie and the prince hit it off, it seems he might be in the market for more than just a terrific cake.”

While the release date for the movie hasn’t been announced, the owners of the Bluffton bakery are launching some romantic ideas of their own in the meantime, shifting the focus of their business from primarily a custom-order bakery to a dessert bar.

“Custom orders were great, but I wanted to increase the foot traffic coming into the building,” explained Erica Ashby of Okatie, who operates the business with her mother, Linda Ashby, and daughter, Kaiya Medrano.

“We’ve expanded our lines. We’ve expanded our hours,” Erica said.

Cupcakes 2 Cakes started as a home-based business then moved into a Berkeley Place storefront in late 2021. The bakery shut its doors temporarily in July before reopening Aug. 1 with a refreshed purpose.

“We made the decision to shut down and rebrand,” Erica said, “partly because I wanted to change the aesthetic and the feel of the business, and I wanted to change kind of the direction in which we were going.”

Now, Cupcakes 2 Cakes offers at least 13 flavors of cupcakes on any given day. Customers also can choose from 10 or so different pastries or order cake slices and even Jack Frost ice cream.

“Of course, we still have our decorated sugar cookies and then our gourmet cookies,” Erica said.

Everything is done in small batches, she explained.

“We don’t use a lot of dyes. We don’t use extracts and emulsions. We use natural flavorings for our cupcakes. ... We put out our pastries, and when we are sold out, we are sold out for the day,” she said. “We don’t keep anything in the freezer.”

The trio of bakers hasn’t stopped creating extravagant celebration cakes for birthdays, anniversaries and weddings, and they use an edible ink printer to create logo cookies for corporate events.

New to the menu, though, is an expanded lineup of drinks.

“We do more coffee, more tea, more funky drinks like our cotton candy lemonade, our Shirley Temple floats, our bourbon coffee.” The bourbon coffee is non-alcoholic; it uses coffee beans aged in whiskey barrels from The Grind Roasters.

Cupcakes 2 Cakes has started opening in the evenings on Fridays and Saturdays and soon will add a menu of special dessert and drink pairings available during that time.

“After the movies, couples, singles, family members, if they’re looking for something to do after dinner, after the movies, they can come in and grab a mocktail that we will set up to pair with a specific dessert so that it’ll be a type of an experience.”

Customers can expect the evening hours will feature the same creativity evident in the current cupcake menu.

“We try to do out-of-the-box flavors,” Erica said, listing habenero peach, elote street corn, or chicken and waffles among some recent offerings.

“We tend to do kind of a crazy flavor each week, and people love us for our creativity,” she said. Holidays are particularly fun because the bakers like to take a theme and run with it.

Right now, they are learning all they can about beverage pairings.

“We’ve been hiring mixologists and baristas, and we’ve been attending classes just to get a better understanding of the chemistry and everything that’s involved with actually making drinks,” Erica said. “We want to do something that’s the show, fancy cocktails, smoked cocktails ... creative stuff.”

What: Cupcakes 2 Cakes

Where: 108 Buckwalter Parkway, Suite 2C, Bluffton

Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; closed Sunday and Monday.

Phone: 843-415-5678

Website: cupcakes2cakes.com

This story was originally published August 17, 2023, 4:00 AM.

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