Chaos continues in Carolinas
Thousands more have been told to be ready to evacuate as rivers keep rising.
YAUHANNAH, S.C. — More than a week ago, pastor Willie Lowrimore and some of his congregants stacked sandbags around their South Carolina church to protect it from the fury of Hurricane Florence.
They moved the pews to higher ground and watched anxiously for days as the nearly black, reeking water from the swollen Waccamaw River rose, even though the hurricane was long gone. Finally, before dawn Monday, the water seeped around and over the sandbags, flooding the sanctuary.
“I’m going to go one day at a time,” Lowrimore said as he sat in a rocking chair listening to the river rush by, ruining the church he built almost 20 years ago. “Put it in the Lord’s hands. My hands aren’t big enough.”
Ten days after Florence came ashore, the storm caused fresh chaos Monday in Yauhannah and elsewhere across South Carolina, 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 Broach-Akers said.
Places along the waterfront in Georgetown were predicted to flood for the first time since record keeping began before the American Revolution.
“We are still getting phone calls from people who don’t know what is going on,” said Georgetown County Emergency Management Director Sam Hodge.
In North Carolina, where Florence made landfall, Gov. Roy Cooper said the state was moving from an emergency response mode to full-time recovery from the storm.
“Florence is gone, but the storm’s devastation is still with us,” Cooper said at a news conference.
About 400 roads across the state remained closed because of the storm that has claimed at least 46 lives since slamming into the coast Sept. 14.
But there was some good news: Interstate 95 was reopened to all traffic Sunday night for the first time since the floods, and Cooper announced Monday that a portion of Interstate 40 had reopened sooner than expected.
Power outages and the number of people in shelters also were declining. About 5,000 people were without power. About 2,200 people were in shelters, the governor said.
On Monday, Republican education leaders in North Carolina announced planned legislation to assure teachers at still-shuttered schools they will get paid without using vacation time. The proposal was part of broader disaster funding that the General Assembly will consider in an anticipated special session.
The full impact of Hurricane Florence on North Carolina’s public high schools and grade schools was still unclear.
In Washington, lawmakers considered almost $1.7 billion in new money for disaster relief and recovery, even as they face a deadline to fund the government before the Oct. 1 start of the new budget year.
Florence has caused about $44 billion in damage and lost output.