Just days after Hurricane Helene tore a path of destruction through South Carolina leaving at least 29 dead, state government and utility officials are scrambling to reopen roads, deliver emergency services and get the lights back on for almost 625,000 residents who are still without power.
“We’ve got the whole team on the field — everybody,” Gov. Henry McMaster told reporters at a Monday afternoon press conference. “We’re making progress, but it’s going to take a while.”
Current priorities are clearing roadways, restoring power, operating shelters, and distributing water and food in the state’s hardest hit areas, according to S.C. Emergency Management Director Kim Stenson. In support of those efforts, federal officials are processing state emergency assistance requests on an expedited basis.
“They’re bringing a lot to bear,” Stenson said of the federal effort. “But at the end of the day, what they really bring to South Carolina is reimbursement for many of these costs, both at the public level and the government level.”
As of 2 p.m. Monday, 480 roads remained closed across the state and more than 200 South Carolinians were in 16 medical and general-needs shelters. In addition, mass feeding sites were operating in Aiken, Edgefield, Barnwell, Saluda and Richland counties.
Meanwhile, the torrents of rain that poured down on North Carolina and the Upstate are sluicing toward the coast, causing riverine flooding in Columbia and concerns about rivers in the Pee Dee and Midlands regions later this week. Officials say they don’t believe Charleston waters are at risk.
‘Unprecedented damage’ to utility infrastructure
At the same press conference, representatives of the state’s major utilities said they expected to have power restored for “the vast majority” of their customers by late Friday, but stressed the amount of work that lay ahead.
“Last time I checked, more than 1,900 [of our] poles were snapped,” Central Electric Power Cooperative CEO Rob Hochstetler said. “Just for context, it takes a four-person crew up to four hours to replace a single pole.”
Moreover, he said, the “utter destruction” that Helene inflicted on some parts of the Upstate created “unprecedented damage” to critical utility infrastructure.
“This is not a typical storm restoration,” Hochstetler said. “It’s a rebuild.”
But when asked whether burying power lines could help protect against future weather-related damage and outages – an idea floated Sunday by the state’s senior U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham – the executives noted the high cost to consumers.
“It’s expensive,” Dominion-S.C. President Keller Kissam said. “And if customers are going to pay for it, you’re going to put an unfair burden on some South Carolinians that maybe aren’t able to pay.”
Ongoing threats: Downstream flooding and misinformation
As flood waters from the Upstate and North Carolina mountain regions roll down through the state’s major waterways toward the ocean, the Pee Dee and Midlands areas will face the greatest risk of downstream flooding, with the Charleston Lowcountry, officials hope, largely spared
Some of that flooding has already been felt in the Columbia area, with water in homes and roadways along the Broad and Congaree rivers, which crested at near-record levels on Sept. 30.
But with Santee Cooper’s announcement late yesterday that it will begin spilling significant volumes of water from Lake Marion on Oct. 1 to maintain dam and dike integrity, all eyes are now on Georgetown County, where local officials say they are preparing for problems along the Santee and Sampit rivers later this week.
“We are bracing for some fairly significant flooding,” Georgetown County spokesperson Jackie Broach told the City Paper on Monday afternoon.
But she noted, Santee Cooper officials have told the county to expect less widespread damage than in the 1000-year storm in 2015.
“The good news, if there is any good news here,” Broach said, “is that the impacts will not be countywide this time, which is terrible for people in the affected areas but will allow us to focus our resources on the places [that need it most].”
Back in Columbia, the governor and several utility officials stressed the importance of relying on traditional news outlets and official sources of information such Georgetown’s Broach in the days ahead.
“We ask people not to listen to rumors,” McMaster said, noting that false information had already caused unnecessary concerns about drinking water in the Columbia area. “Don’t get your information from these unofficial sources, because 99% of the time, they’re wrong.”
This is a developing story. Follow Charleston City Paper for updates.
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