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Shawn Lowrimore, Pastor Willie Lowrimore of The Fellowship With Jesus Ministries, Jr., wades into water near Yauhannah Church, SC, on Monday, September 24, 2018. The church is on the shore of the Waccamaw River that has already risen above its record high and is expected to continue increasing for several days, forcing thousands of evacuations as a result of Hurricane Florence. (AP Photo / Jeffrey S. Collins)
GEORGETOWN, S.C. – Eleven days ago, Lee Gantt was attending a Hurricane Florence party in his Georgetown neighborhood, where it is rumored that some houses have not been flooded since the Sampit River since their construction before the American Revolution.
She will spend Tuesday with sandbags, watch the nearby river rise from the heavy rains of Florence and see if the luck eventually run out at home, built on Front Street in 1737.
"We thought it could happen, we just left everything above the ground, like in the hurricane, I'm nervous, can not you see me tremble?" she said, extending her arms.
The Sampit is one of five rivers that reach the Atlantic Ocean in and near Georgetown on the coast of South Carolina. And Hurricane Florence – which began with record rainfall in North Carolina – is expected to cause record flooding downstream in Georgetown County. There is so much water coming that other rivers are not even flooded.
The county has recommended that nearly 8,000 people leave their homes, more than 10% of the population. Authorities expect the waters to flood several bridges, almost cutting off Georgetown County in two and leaving only one freeway outside the ridge scheduled for Thursday morning.
The deluge so slowly swept the Lumber, Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers that the state released detailed flood maps last week. Upstream in Horry County, the water flooded nearly 1,000 homes near Conway as the Waccamaw River slowly headed for the ridge 1.2 meters from its record two years after Hurricane Matthew.
But in North Carolina, Governor Roy Cooper said that it was time to focus on recovery. "Florence is gone but the devastation of the storm is still with us," Cooper said at a press conference.
About 400 roads across North Carolina have been closed due to the storm that has killed at least 46 people since the day they hit the coast on September 14th. The teams reopened the main closed motorways in the storm. Interstate 95 was reopened Sunday night for the first time since the floods, and Cooper said Monday that a previously closed portion of Interstate 40 had reopened earlier than planned.
Power outages and the number of people in shelters were also decreasing. About 5,000 people were without electricity, compared to about 800,000, and about 2,200 people were in shelters, compared to about 20,000, the governor said.
In Washington, legislators have looked at nearly $ 1.7 billion in new money for disaster relief and recovery. And the economic research firm Moody's Analytics estimated that Florence had caused about $ 44 billion worth of damage and a production loss, one of the 10 most expensive hurricanes in the United States. The worst disaster, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, cost $ 192.2 billion in dollars today. Hurricane Harvey last year cost $ 133.5 billion.
In Georgetown County, there is a disaster of almost two weeks. Georgetown County spent days under hurricane warnings before Hurricane Florence landed about 110 miles (175 kilometers) from the coast near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.
The worst of the storm remained well north, causing only minor floods in Georgetown and slaughtered members.
"We have organized a hurricane party," said Gantt. "Now I do not know what to do."
A few blocks from Front Street, the main business district was busy, but people were leaving. All along the sidewalk, there were piles of works of art, antiques and boxes, the owners emptying their inventory to improve it.
The Tomlinson department store sent an empty truck normally used to store the stocks and the employees rushed to fill everything. The store has never been flooded, but forecasts predict up to 1.5 meters of water by Thursday. "The anticipation was nerve-wracking, but I'm glad we had the time to do it," said District Director Kevin Plexico.
Georgetown was positioning ambulances and fire trucks in the busy tourist area along the beaches in case the floods cut off the American highway bridges as planned. National Guard troops were ready to float more equipment on the river if necessary. Exhausted emergency officials said they were only living in Florence for more than two weeks.
"The work has been done," said Georgetown Mayor Brendon Barber. "We just need to pray."
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Associated Press writers Gary D. Robertson and Alex Derosier in Raleigh; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia; and Sarah Brumfield in Washington contributed to this report.
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To learn more about Hurricane Florence, visit https://www.apnews.com/tag/Hurricanes
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