Rain-swollen South Carolina rivers prompt new evacuations
Source: AP
By BRUCE SMITH
PLEASANT HILL, S.C. (AP) — A number of South Carolina residents near the coast are evacuating and others are piling up sandbags anew outside homes and businesses, bracing for more possible flooding even as the nation's Homeland Security chief is set later Friday to tour areas hit hard by recent heavy rains.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson planned to travel to Columbia and Charleston during the day Friday to meet with federal, state and local officials and see the recovery efforts firsthand from what South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has described as a 1,000-year rainstorm. While skies are clear again after past days of rain, residents along or near the coast are readying as rain-swollen rivers reach the sea.
Members of the South Carolina National Guard, stationed at a fire station in the rural hamlet of Pleasant Hill about 30 minutes from Georgetown, were busy Thursday helping people get to shelters from areas still cut off by road flooding. In some areas, flooding is expected to worsen in coming days and Georgetown, which fronts a coastal bay fed by a series of rivers, is especially watchful.
Guardsmen Michael Sanders, 21, and Michael Dunmore, 19, manned a Light Medium Tactical Vehicle, a truck with high clearance and a sealed engine that can easily move through 4 feet of water. The back was covered with canvas and outfitted with seats for those being evacuated out of the areas still threatened by floodwaters. The two are among some 2,800 Guard members called up to help deal with the flooding.
FULL story at link.
Tara Saracina paddleboards down her street in the Ashborough subdivision in Summerville, S.C., Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015. Saracina said the floodwaters seem to be going down. "Now it's just the cleanup," she said. (AP Photo/Mic Smith)
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/70b9a4b4db0a4f5da2f5a18e6b22c7b3/rain-swollen-south-carolina-rivers-prompt-more-evacuations
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