South Carolina flooding: Dams breached,

more trouble ahead

                           Originally wrote by Holly Yan and Ray Sanchez, CNN

Though the rain stopped, South Carolina is dealing with a whole new set of problems. A dam breaks, billions of dollars of damage is done, and the river hasn’t even hit his highest point yet.

Officials warn that they must be extremely careful in this situation. Caution has to be taken for about the next three days.

“The next 36 to 48 hours are going to be a time that we need to continue to be careful.”   Gov. Nikki Haley  said, “We still have to be cautious,”

Haley has provided an estimate of the “disturbing” damage cost but also said that state and federal Emergency Management Agency officials were making assessments.

“It’s hard to look at the loss we’re going to have,” Haley said. “This could be any amount of dollars.”

Affecting about 16 water systems, more than 400,000 state residents were under a ‘boil water advisory’, a public health advisory or directive given by government or health authorities to consumers when a community’s drinking water is, or could be, contaminated by pathogens, an infectious agent, said Jim Beasley, a spokesman for the S.C. Emergency Response Team.

The latest on this giant flooding problem is below.

Since Saturday, 35 dams are being monitored while 11 dams have failed in South Carolina, the state’s Emergency Management Division said.

One massive failure at Overcreek Bridge dam in Richland County’s Forest Acres sent flood waters roaring downstream and forced evacuations near Columbia.

Also in Richland County, officials allowed water to breach from one other dam. The controlled breaches are to help officers  “…prevent a much larger incident and a much larger amount of water escaping from the dam,”  emergency management spokesman Derrec Becker said.

National Guards have been helping with sandbagging operations and other mitigation efforts.

As of now, 17 people have died due to these weather related issues: 15 in South Carolina and 2 in North. At least 9 drowned and six died in traffic accidents, reported South Carolina’s Department of Public Safety.

North Carolina also reported to deaths in traffic accidents in Cumberland and Jackson counties.

There has been 175 water rescues and 800 people are living in temporary housing said Haley.

70 miles of interstate 95 is still closed with five to eight bridges still undergoing structural checks.

Everyone in the Carolinas is affected by this, including the deceased.

Caskets have been seen floating down the river after being uprooted from the cemetery and washed away.

While in an interview, Wayne Reeves, pastor of New Life Ministries in Summerville, saw a casket float down the river and proceeded to head into the waist-deep water and retrieve it.

“That’s somebody’s family out there,” he told CNN affiliate WCBD-TV. “That’s (a) family suffering. That’s their family there that popped up from under the ground. And I think it’s the human thing to do.”

It turns out that they family was watching as Reeves carried the casket, still adorning white and pink flowers, out of the water.

“This family don’t want to sit on the edge of this road all night long watching their family members bob in the water like that,” the pastor said

“If that was my mom or my dad, I’d walk through hell and high water. And today it happened to be high water.”

To add on top of all of this, apartments that people were forced to evacuate have found to be looted.

Monday, Pamela Courts arrived at  her apartment and found not just flood damage but signs of theft.

“Overnight, we had a break-in, so whatever was upstairs they came and took: TVs, jewelry, everything,” she said.

And yet the rivers are still rising. The flooding is far from over and the river isn’t expected to crest for another to weeks.

This affects both me and the world because though I don’t live in the Carolinas, I have family friends that do and the amount of damage and death is devastating.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/06/us/south-carolina-flooding/

                                                                                                                  Retold by Hailey Narvaez