Residents urged to evacuate due to rising rivers
BLADENBORO, N.C. — Ten days after Hurricane Florence came ashore, the storm caused fresh chaos Monday across the Carolinas, where rivers kept rising and thousands more people were told to be ready to evacuate.
Authorities urged up to 8,000 people in Georgetown County, on the South Carolina coast, to be prepared to flee from potential flood zones. A “record event” of up to 10 feet of flooding was expected to begin Tuesday near parts of the Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers, county spokeswoman Jackie BroachAkers said.
Residents along the Waccamaw braced for water predicted to peak Wednesday at 22 feet near Conway. That’s twice the normal flood stage and far higher than the previous record of 17.9 feet, according to charts published Monday by the National Weather Service.
Pastor Willie Lowrimore and several members of his church spent Saturday sandbagging and spreading plastic sheets around the sanctuary of The Fellowship With Jesus Ministries church on the banks of the Waccamaw in Yauhannah, S.C., about 20 miles south of Myrtle Beach.
The nearly black, reeking water seeped around and over the sandbags around 2 a.m. Monday. By noon, it was several inches deep.
With the church pews moved to a flatbed trailer on higher ground, Lowrimore sat in a rocking chair listening to the normally calm river rush by, ruining the church he built almost 20 years ago.
“I’m going to go one day at a time. Put it in the Lord’s hands. My hands aren’t big enough,” he said.
In North Carolina, the Cape Fear and Neuse rivers remained swollen and were not expected to return to normal levels until October, the charts show.
“Florence continues to bring misery to North Carolina,” Gov. Roy Cooper said Sunday evening in a statement.
Most of the Carolinas have seen the worst of the flooding, but people need to remain cautious, said Todd Hamill, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service’s Southeast River Forecast Center. With most rivers having crested, that water is moving toward the coast, he said.
The storm has claimed at least 43 lives since slamming into the coast Sept. 14.