Flooding prompts new warnings in Carolinas
GALIVANTS FERRY, S.C. — With muddy river water still washing over entire communities Friday, eight days after Hurricane Florence slammed into land with nearly 3 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 that had been submerged in South Carolina, and hundreds were forced from their homes as rivers kept swelling higher and higher.
Leaders 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,” South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said.
President Donald Trump, speaking in Las Vegas, said South Carolina is in for a “tough one” as flood waters continue to rise.
“They got hit, but the big hit comes days later and it will be the biggest they’ve ever had,” said Trump, who visited North and South Carolina this week.
While most peoples’ 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 the region.
Rescuers wearing night-vision googles used helicopters, boats and big-wheeled military vehicles overnight to evacuate 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 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 Floodwaters overtake a pickup Friday in Nichols, S.C., after waters keep rising in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. 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 25 miles 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 starting to close 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.
Roads also were a major problem in Wilmington, a city of 120,000 people still mostly cut off from the rest of North Carolina. A photograph posted by the state transportation agency showed flowing water and buckled asphalt on a highway that had been one of the few passable routes into the city, where officials have distributed food and water to residents.
Along the Cape Fear River, David and Benetta White and their four children were given short notice to evacuate overnight when floodwaters came rushing on to their property. By the time they got loaded into their van, water was waist-high as they made their way to a neighbor’s pickup.
“We almost lost our lives, I’m here to tell you we did,” said White, whose family previously evacuated last Thursday as Florence approached as a hurricane from the Atlantic.