User blog:RCTFan2002/Whatever Happened to... Episode 3: Whatever Happened to...Six Flags South Carolina?

Hi guys, it's RCTFan2002 again. Welcome back to an all-new episode of my "Whatever Happened To...?" series. This one will address what is probably one of the most famous and popular RCT3 park projects ever created - CD5's "Six Flags South Carolina". This RCT3 timeline park showed the park growing up from humble beginnings in the 1970's, facing financial issues and a hurricane in the '80s, and eventually becoming reborn in the '90s as one of Six Flags' most popular parks in the South, which it remains as to this day - and by this day I mean 2010, when the last update was posted. But what happened after that? What does the park look like today? Well, you're in luck because you're about to see everything that (at least in my imagination) happened to Six Flags South Carolina since then and how the park looks in 2022!

(For the record, I do NOT own Six Flags South Carolina, like at all. It belongs entirely to the very talented and skilled Coasterdude5. Kudos to him for creating one of the greatest RCT3 parks ever *cough*andaSixFlagsoneatthat*cough*)

Six Flags South Carolina: The People
First off, a brief "Where are they now?" segment detailing what happened to the three main characters of the SFSC storyline: ex-manager of the park Joseph Reynolds, the former Charleston journalist Joe Martin, who moved to Dallas in 1999, and Timmy Powers, a coaster blogger who eventually interviewed for a position at the park itself in 2011. Let's see what happened to them since we last saw them:

Joseph Reynolds: Despite retiring from his position as park manager, he still returned to Six Flags South Carolina every year not just to check out the park, but also to help out with processes like job interviews. Otherwise, his life hasn't been eventful at all, as he just enjoyed the quaint life of retirement. However, in the summer of 2020, admist the initial chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns, he tested positive for coronavirus along with his wife. Although they both made a complete recovery from the initial case, the virus had compromised Joseph's immune system, causing him to start acting sickly as time went on. It didn't help that he was already as old as he was, and eventually, his body just...gave out. He passed away in January of 2021 from health complications, confirmed by the coroner to be directly related to his former COVID case. He left behind his wife and many grateful and appreciative SFSC fans. He is currently buried at St. Lawrence Cemetery.

Joe Martin: After moving to Dallas, Texas in October of 1999, he immediately got to work at his new job as a columnist for the local Dallas paper. In 2002, he married a woman named Lisa, who he had a son, Skyler, with in 2004. Eventually, he and Lisa divorced in 2009, and in 2011 he remarried to a woman named Sylvia, who he is still with to this day. With her, he had a daughter Grace Lyn in 2013, and another daughter named Kylie in 2015. He also managed to work his way up the system at his new company over the years, eventually becoming building manager in 2014. However, he still maintains a love for theme parks and rollercoasters and occasionally blogs about them online on his own personal blog site. He started taking his kids on road trips to nearby parks like Six Flags Over Texas and Seaworld San Antonio in hopes of getting them interested in theme parks as well. After COVID broke out, he now spends most of his time working from home, writing for both his job and his personal blog on his computer and keeping people updated on the breaking theme park news.

Timmy Powers: Despite his passion for the park, he, unfortunately, did not get the job in the communications/marketing department at SFSC that he talked about in his final park update. However, despite this he still keeps a positive attitude about his home park. Eventually, in 2012 he moved to Marietta, Georgia where he DID get a job in the advertising department at Six Flags Over Georgia, mainly working on the park's website and posting updates about the park on social media. In 2015, he got married to a girl named Danielle, and they currently have two sons named River and Gabriel, both currently 4 years old and going on 5 in March. In spite of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, he was able to successfully take his wife and kids on a road trip to SFSC for the first time in July 2021, stating that "they loved it".

Six Flags South Carolina: The Park
Now that we know what happened with everybody from the storyline, we can get to the park itself, and see what happened to it between the years 2011 and 2022.

In 2011, the park opened Apocalypse: The Ride, a GCI family wooden coaster with a maximum height of 80 ft and 2400 ft of track. Located in the former spot of the Skycoaster, the coaster has received rave reviews from both families and thrillseekers alike, considering it to be the perfect bridge between a thrill coaster and a family coaster due to it's small height yet exciting and thrilling layout.

2012 didn't see any major capital come to the theme park itself, but the 15-acre Hurricane Harbor waterpark did have it's grand opening right next door on Friday, June 29th. The waterpark, featuring 25 all-new waterslides and attractions - including the chain's second Polin King Cobra slide - was advertised as a separate entity from the theme park, and requires a separate admissions fee for all entering guests. However, that same year Six Flags also unveiled an all-new combination season pass for the park, allowing returning guests at Six Flags South Carolina to pay only one fee to access both the theme park and waterpark. The park also said goodbye that year to it's S&S Sky Swat, Firebomb, due to low ridership and just being an unpopular ride in general.

However, that spot wouldn't be empty for long as in 2013, the Charleston SkyScreamer opened! At only 200 ft tall, it is, oddly enough, smaller than most of the other rides of it's type in the SF chain - with the only exception being the 151-ft SkyScreamer at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (According to a later leak, the ride was supposed to be 242 ft like some of the other ride models in the chain and just be called "SkyScreamer". However, for unknown reasons the height was scaled down and "Charleston" was thrown into the name at the last second). But despite it's small height, which some people initially criticized and nitpicked about, the ride still received generally positive reviews from critics and guests, providing a very exciting and thrilling viewing experience of the park. It is also surprisingly very popular with families given how it's not as tall as it's other Six Flags counterparts.

In summer of 2013, Derecho, the park's classic woodie, began shutting down on random days with little to no official explanation, the best one being "we're undergoing some inspections right now". This sparked some debate online as to what was happening to the coaster - some people said it was just a simple ride inspection, nothing more. Others said it would be an RMC conversion, similar to what happened to Texas GIant and Rattler at SF's other parks in Texas. And others feared that the coaster would simply be demolished on the spot. Eventually, an official from the park claimed that the coaster was "receiving a significant facelift and rehabilitation for the 2014 season", seemingly putting an end to the debate once and for all...