ASDSO extends sympathy to South Carolinians who have been affected by the flooding. For the second time in two days, he rushed to pack up his family’s belongings.
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Columbia is also still under a boil water advisory, meaning all water must be boiled for a minute before cooking or drinking.
A few hours later, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said the situation had been stabilized and residents were allowed to return home.
State funding for dam safety is $260,000 – or $104 per dam, significantly less than the national average of $611 per dam, but more than allocated in Alabama, the only state which lacks a dam safety program. This designation has nothing to do with the condition of the dam, but means that its failure is likely to cause loss of life. Through the decades, neighborhoods have been developed around the scenic lakes, creating storm water runoff problems, according to the Gills Creek Watershed Assn.
There are about 50,000 dams in South Carolina, but only 2,200 are large enough to be regulated by the state through the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. Of those, 180 are deemed high-hazard potential, said Mark Ogden, project manager with the Assn. of State Dam Safety Officials, a nonprofit organization. The floods have broken multiple dams and destroyed hundreds of homes.
The story in South Carolina is different, with more than 2,400 dams and the majority of them are low hazard potential. “This has taken most people completely by surprise – there just wasn’t a full appreciation of the vulnerability of these dams before this rain”.
The report of a dam breach at the Upper Windsor Dam near Dentsville was false, and there are no evacuations in the area.
South Carolina has for years had one of the nation’s weakest dam safety programs, consistently ranking near the bottom of rankings in federal and state government reports.
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The Army Corps of Engineers details the number of dams in every state, who owns them and if there are emergency plans for these dams.
