Florence floodwaters prompt new evacuations
GALIVANTS FERRY, S.C. — With muddy river water still washing over entire communities on Friday, eight days after hurricane Florence slammed into land with nearly three feet of rain, new evacuation orders forced residents to flee to higher ground amid a sprawling disaster that’s beginning to feel like it will never end.
At least 42 people have died, included an elderly man whose body was found in a pickup truck that had been submerged in South Carolina, and hundreds were forced from their homes as rivers kept swelling.
Elected officials in the Carolinas warned residents not to get complacent as it became plain that additional horrors lie ahead before things get much better.
“Although the winds are gone and the rain is not falling, the water is still there and the worst is still to come,” said South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who estimated damage from the flood in his state at US$1.2 billion.
While most people’s lights are back on in the Carolinas and Virginia and trucks are picking up mountains of storm debris in many areas, water draining toward the sea from inland areas is sending rivers over their banks across a wide region.
Rescuers wearing night-vision goggles used helicopters, boats and big-wheeled military vehicles overnight to remove about 100 people from a southeastern North Carolina county where high water breached a levee and flooded a town.
And in South Carolina, emergency managers ordered about 500 people to flee homes along the Lynches River. The U.S. National Weather Service said the river could reach record flood levels late Saturday or early Sunday. Shelters are open.
In tiny Galivants Ferry, Audra Mauer said she lost her home two years ago when hurricane Matthew hit and she’s losing it again to Florence. No improvements were made to the area after Matthew, she said.
“They didn’t clean the ditches,” she said. “Same levee. Same dams. What have we been doing for two years? ... Where did the money go to fix everything, to make the power lines stronger and to replace the poles?”
The National Hurricane Center said it was monitoring four areas in the Atlantic for signs of a new tropical weather threat. One was off the coast of the Carolinas with a chance of drifting toward land.