The Saluda River is now back to within its banks!

Clear

At least, it is at Quail Hollow, which is all I can testify to for sure. (The Congaree, which I crossed a couple of times today, still looked fairly high — no doubt thanks to the Broad.)

The above photo was taken at 5:31 p.m. today from approximately the same angle as the one below, taken at 10:41 a.m. Monday.

See? I told you there were tennis courts under there…

full flood

 

7 thoughts on “The Saluda River is now back to within its banks!

  1. Lynn Teague

    Congaree Riverkeeper’s aerial photos of the confluence show the Saluda green, the Broad brown. The Saluda has been the quieter water in all this.

  2. Mike Cakora

    We live in Forest Acres one block west of Trenholm Road, south of Arcadia Lakes, and about a mile north of Forest Drive. Our house, a split level, is on a slope with the crawl space uphill and the laundry, rec room, garage downstairs on the downhill side. We have two driveways, the main one uphill from the downhill one which serves the 12 by 20 outbuilding named the Taj Mahal that serves as my home office and workshop. Overnight Saturday and Sunday a mini-tsunami moved through the downhill portion at a height of about 18 inches. It inundated the Taj, upending a fridge and plastic storage boxes, tool chests, my chainsaw (sniff!) and power washer (a Honda, no less). It also flooded my daughter’s Camry. But, WE ARE LUCKY and FEEL FORTUNATE that we got off so lightly.

    I was working in Northern Virginia. My wife called Sunday morning with news that the downstairs was flooded, power was out, etc. She told me that conditions were such that I needed to delay coming home. So of course I loaded my car up and headed out. You all need to know that state departments of transportation have websites with up-to-date highway and travel info with “511” as part of the address. For example, http://www.sc511.org/ has a nice map with links to traffic cameras, what’s on the warning signs, weather for major cities, etc. So I tuned to it at every stop where I could find free wireless as I headed out from NoVA on I-66 to I-81 south to I-77 south.

    At a pit, pot, and food stop in Raphine, VA, the Wendy’s had the weather channel on showing the disastrous flooding at Gills Creek, a mile from our house, that inundated my wife’s brother’s house near Lake Katherine. For once I did let good sense intervene and overnighted at a motel in Rock Hill in part because at 7:00 PM the SC DOT website showed part of I-77 closed.

    Heading out the next morning, I called my wife for special requests and got the answer “Rye bread, water, and you.” So I stopped off at the Killian’s Road Walmart for those items (the only water available was distilled), along with a 5-gallon gas can, a 24-pack of beer, and knee-high rubber boots. Selecting the latter was a embarrassing as I had a heckuva time getting off the first pair I tried on. I found some that worked and headed home.

    I exited at Farrow Road to fill the gas can and get the 96-oz coffee jug (a welcomed innovation and wonderful product) from Bojangles for my family and neighbors. Some biscuits snuck in…

    About my neighbors… Mark, the neighbor to the south, had a generator and early Sunday threw my wife an extension cord for our fridge. When I got home I prepared and fired up my 3KW generator, but it lasted only an hour and fried two surge protectors. So it was back to the neighbor whom we kept supplied with gasoline and hot water (from our natural-gas-fueled stove – the have an electric range).

    The sun came up this morning and power came on around noon! My 30-year-old Craftsman shop vac crapped out too after about 20 gallons, but Home Depot had rushed 135 12-gallon models to the store on Two Notch: problem solved.

    Over the past few days we’ve enjoyed superior support from the following (I’m sure there are many more, I’m just not personally aware of them):

    – Wonderful neighbors.
    – Bojangles for their ¾ gallon coffee thingy.
    – Publix for sending employees from Rock Hill and beyond, and paying them overtime to boot.
    – Home Depot for rushing in the tools we need.
    – The National Guard, FEMA, the state government, and whoever else has been providing rescue assistance, water, etc.

    We want to emphasize the following lessons learned:

    – Good neighbors are great!
    – Bottled water is a treasure and a treat, always have lots around, and if anyone gives you crap about that, just grin and tell them “Wait until the next flood, the truth shall make you free.” Or punch them in the nose.
    – Rechargeable batteries are useless unless they’re at least 18 volts and power tools that do work.
    – Two-cycle engines will save the world, four-cycle engines (and turbines) keep it humming.
    – The very best beer is the one you have when you stink of gasoline and the buzz of chainsaws and generators is your background music.
    – Solar power is a neat idea as long as the sun is shining. Give me the grid, nuke- or coal-powered.

    Sorry to take up so much space, Brad, but for us the really bad part is over, so we just need to contend with the somewhat hard part.

  3. Kathryn Fenner

    The gates are now closed on Lake Murray.

    I have been religious about keeping emergency water on hand ever since we woke up one morning in the early 2000s to no water–big city water main had broken. One gallon per person, per day, minimum, for at least three days. I am running low on my stocks and had to get more, finally.

    Also, anyone who doesn’t buy flood insurance after this is a fool. It’s pretty cheap if you don’t actually live in a flood zone, and at least 1/3 of flood losses occur in non-flood zones. Your insurance agent can help you–you buy it from the feds.

    Also, an earthquake rider for your H/O policy. We are having more and more of these 0.1% events….

    1. Mark Stewart

      Sadly, the flood insurance take-up rate by those impacted directly by this deluge is probably going to turn out to be heart-breakingly low.

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