Florence floods 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 higher and higher.

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 U.S. $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, and a frustrated Mauer has no faith any will happen now.

“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?”

About 40 kilometres nearer to the South Carolina coast, Kevin Tovornik was tearing soggy carpet out of the house he has owned for 20 years in Conway, where the Waccamaw River was still rising. Bridges are closing because of flooding, he said, and friends were struck in traffic for four hours trying to get through the town of 23,000 people.

“This is ridiculous. This is the worst I’ve ever seen, and that includes hurricane evacuations,” Tovornik said.