1 week Ago By GENE ZALESKI T&D Staff Writer
The Nov. 7 flood closed 183 roads in Orangeburg County. Only 70 are closed now.
Now comes the hard part: Waiting for the most difficult problems to be fixed. “Please adapt to your new normal because we are going to see the list of roads coming off the road closure board drastically slow down because we are getting to roads we are having to do major repairs to,” Orangeburg County Emergency Services Division Director Billy Staley said. The roads were damaged after 15 inches of rain fell in some parts of Orangeburg County over a 12-hour period.
“We have had storms in the past that were debris cleanup missions, that were ice storm power line missions when it was primarily utilities,” Staley said. “This one is a little bit different because this one is primarily roadway infrastructure with substantial damages. That recovery process when you talk about roadways is extended,” Staley continued.
“It takes longer to build it back.” Staley estimates out of the nearly 200 roads closed following the storm, about 30 roads were completely damaged or destroyed. An estimated 15 to 20 dams failed in the county and that only includes dams regulated by the state, Staley said.
There could be others that are unknown. The Etheredge Millpond Dam is among those that breached, resulting in damage to the heavily traveled North Road (U.S.
Highway 178). Staley estimates it could take six months to a year before that road is reopened. Staley asked motorists to not remove barriers, noting the barriers are in place to keep the public safe.
“We have had three collisions already with people moving barriers,” he said. Staley said the preliminary damage estimate to public infrastructure, which includes the county, Orangeburg Department of Public Utilities, the Silver Springs Water District and the Town of Norway is about $3,130,710. The county needs at least $387,425 in damage to apply for Federal Emergency Management Agency funds.
The county’s amount does not include damage to state roads and bridges in the county. The state needs to reach $9.8 million in damage to apply for FEMA funds.
“"I suspect we will be very close if not over because the state has many roads and many bridges washed out,” Staley said. The county is still calculating the extent of residential damage to determine eligibility for federal funding. “We actually have teams going down the river, checking the river in Orangeburg County for people who have residential damage and what are their needs and what is the assessed damages to their home,” Staley said.
“On top of that, we have got building inspection teams and planning teams from the planning department who have to go visit all of those homes and verify their damages in the flood plain,” he said. “They are doing that together as one team and they are doing that over the next week,” Staley said. He expects, “there to be a significant number of homes severely damaged along the South Fork and portions of the North Fork and the greater Edisto River areas down around Branchville.
” “Some video pictures I have seen down there is water up to the top of the house,” Staley said. Staley said if the numbers are high enough, it would be the third disaster declaration in the county this year. It received declarations following Hurricane Debby and Hurricane Helene.
The historic flooding resulted in two known fatalities. It flooded several Stonewall Jackson and Old Edisto Drive businesses and caused the North Fork of the Edisto River to set an all-time record crest at 15.34 feet.
The previous record was 14.7 feet set in 1928. Staley said the flooding event was worse than the 1,000-year flood in October 2015.
The difference? The 2015 flood dumped nearly 20 inches of rain over a three-day period and not in 12 hours. The 2015 flood also primarily dumped rain in the Congaree River basin and not in the Edisto River Basin. Staley noted the night before the flooding event, the North Fork of the Edisto was at four feet.
“Good thing it was not eight feet," Staley said. The flood also brought with it some rather unusual and unprecedented sightings. During the night of the flooding, first responders at the Old Edisto Drive Exxon gas station were met with quite a surprise.
"Alligators and snakes,” Staley said. “We were out there at 10 o'clock that night. .
.. There were snakes on top cars, snakes on top of trucks, snakes on top of fuel tanks, snakes on top of everything because they got washed out of the swamp across the street.
” “From what I understand, they got reports of alligators in places too,” Staley said. While he did not personally see them, calls came into the county's Emergency Operations Center about alligators. He said that is not out of the realm of possibility.
“I have seen alligators in the North Fork of the Edisto all the way up to Slab Landing Road before,” Staley said. Contact the writer: [email protected] or 803-533-5551.
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