Floods in Florence are not as bad as expected

GEORGETOWN, S.C. – The waters of Hurricane Florence are expected to reach their final peak before heading to the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday and are not as high as once feared in parts of South Carolina.

The Waccamaw River is expected to hit record levels on Saturday, but will be well below last week's destructive forecast, Georgetown County Emergency Management reported on Facebook on Friday.

The river is influenced by the tidal current, so it will retreat at low tide before reaching the record at high tide, officials said.

Authorities feared flooding that would overtake road bridges and flood areas that had never been flooded since the founding of Georgetown before the independence war, but that has not happened yet. However, the floods are expected to end up in hundreds of buildings, officials said.

Upstream of Conway, the Waccamaw River began to fall after increasing for more than a week. But on Friday, the river remained nearly 0.8 meters (2.5 feet) above its previous record of 5.5 meters (17.9 feet) set after Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and will likely not fall. below this level before Tuesday.

Most of the nearly 1,000 flooded homes and businesses in and around the city of 23,000 will remain so next week, officials said.

"We are simply encouraging people to be patient, and we know that lives have been turned upside down," said Randy Webster, Horry County Emergency Management Director.

On Monday, road crews will begin demolishing the concrete walls, plastic sheeting and sand that stopped the water from crossing two bridges along Highway 501, the main road to Myrtle Beach. .

In North Carolina, residents of a flooded area of ​​Pender County use a nearby football field as a gathering area to donate and half a dozen families sleep there in RVs or tents.

Sarah Robles, who stays close to her father after flooding her home, said she was helping the football field distribute hot items and meals on the football field to displaced families in the Cross Creek neighborhood.

"We have large storage bins and other things," she said. "We have a tent that has things and everyone comes for things like Clorox, cleaning products, health and beauty, you know, deodorant, new toothbrushes for snacks, ice cream and the drinks."

She said the six to ten families sleeping on the ground, with her neighbors, had trouble finding temporary or transitional housing. She said that those who have space increase prices.

"None of us can find housing, and when people have houses, they accumulate rental prices," she said.