A region hard hit by Hurricane Florence will still host the upcoming PBA50 Storm Invitational live on FloBowling on Sept. 29-30 after host venue Planet Fun Bowling and Entertainment Center in Shallotte, North Carolina, escaped any major damage.

Located just a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean, Planet Fun is right between Wilmington, North Carolina, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina but avoided any flood damage because of forward thinking when the center was built.

Despite more than a dozen inches of rain and having a river right behind it, the center escaped flooding because “we raised the center about 11 feet to get out of flood plain when we built it,” Planet Fun proprietor Brian McCall said in a PBA news release. “We got it about 19 feet above sea level. It certainly has paid for itself a couple of times over. The river has never gotten to our parking lot, but we can see it from there.”

The PBA50 Storm Invitational will feature a star-studded field of the top PBA50 players competing in a special end-of-season event. Among those in the field are Michael Haugen Jr., Brian Kretzer, Ron Mohr, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Norm Duke, Parker Bohn III, Lennie Boresch Jr., Amleto Monacelli, Ryan Shafer, Bob Learn Jr., Pete Weber, Harry Sullins, Brian Voss and Johnny Petraglia.

McCall told the PBA the event may prove to be therapeutic for the region.

“We look forward to hosting the event,” McCall said in the release. “We know people will show up to support it. We hope it’ll be a breath of fresh air for people around here. We had to shut down the center for a week because our league bowlers couldn’t get here, but as bad as things have been, they could have been a whole lot worse.”