'The Gray Man' Is warning South Carolina Residents Ahead of Hurricane Florence

"As Hurricane Florence approaches, spurring the governors of both North and South Carolina to issue a mandatory evacuation, rumbles of an old spirit have begun to sweep the Eastern Shore.

For the residents of Pawleys Island, the so-called Gray Man isn’t a boogeyman meant to scare children into listening to their parents. While the half-goat/half-demon folklore figure Krampus warns children in central Europe to behave at Christmas, and the Jersey Devil, who may have been created as an elaborate real estate hoax to frighten residents into selling their properties for cheap, the Gray Man allegedly serves a more selfless purpose: saving lives.

“It’s a story I heard growing up,” Rian Fontaine, a 23-year-old college student who still lives on Pawleys Island, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “I think everyone in the low country has heard the story, especially when hurricanes or tropical storms begin to form around our area. It’s always something you hear people bring up. He’s a friendly entity. … Not that it’s a good thing to see him, but when someone does claim to see him, it gives us locals an idea of what we’re dealing with.”"

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