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Aftermath of extreme flooding in South Carolina following Hurricane

But he said officials have contingency plans in place to make sure the city does not run out of water.

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Some students have been working to help others, such as Cory Alpert, who with friends organized a list of more than 1,700 volunteers for the city and charities like the United Way.

And the area where he lives is just starting to dry out after historic floods.

Haley declined to provide an estimated cost of the damage – which she called “disturbing” – but said state and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials were making assessments.

During a press conference today, Haley said Colleton, Horry, Georgetown, Williamsburg, Charleston and Dorchester counties could have voluntary evacuations as floodwaters continue to move from the Midlands to the Lowcountry. “This could be any amount of dollars”.

She says there could still be some evacuations along some coastal areas of the state over the next 48 hours.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The Red Cross has 26 shelters operating statewide, including this one at A.C. Flora High School in Columbia with cots for about 200 people. She said five people drove around a barricade and two of them are still missing.

In the South Carolina capital of Columbia, which experienced its wettest days on record over the weekend, the University of South Carolina announced it was cancelling classes until Friday due to the flooding.

Watts did not say how Pringle died.

It could take until the weekend for the threat of flooding to ease in storm-tattered South Carolina, where a senator warned of a potential billion-dollar cleanup bill.

Beginning in the early 1900s, many small earthen dams were built mainly by landowners along the network to create recreational lakes.

Richland County government later tweeted that there was no breach.

James Savage, left, and his girlfriend, Ianna Fincher, with her dog Lucy, kayak down Mayfield Street in the Ashborough subdivision near Summerville, S.C., after many of their neighbors evacuated Monday, Oct. 5, 2015. Through the decades, neighborhoods have been developed around the scenic lakes, creating storm water runoff problems, according to the Gills Creek Watershed Assn. Workers were building a rock dam a few hundred feet north of the breach, which is near the city’s hydroelectric plant. “You can push South Carolina, but boy does South Carolina push back”, she said.

There were no further details of who the occupants of the vehicle were or why they had gone down the road in Lower Richland County. She did not release names or the location of the barricade.

The death toll from unprecedented rainfall that hammered the U.S. east coast since last week has risen to 17, officials said Tuesday. Two other deaths in North Carolina have been blamed on the storm.

Things are starting to return to normal in South Carolina after days of devastating rains, with the weather clearing and electricity largely restored. Duke Energy said that only “a handful” of its customers were without power.

As of Tuesday, the South Carolina Department of Transportation said 306 roads and 163 bridges in the state were closed. Many of those were in the Columbia area.

Officials warned residents not to try to drive through or around standing water and debris that have covered many roadways. “No telling when that thing gets fixed”, Clarendon County Sheriff Randy Garrett said Monday.

On Monday, the mayor of Columbia, Steve Benjamin, tweeted : “Our recovery will not be quick or easy”. Stored water supplies and continuous water shuttling from firefighters allowed the hospitals to remain open. In Forest Acres, all but two dams have been breached.

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Gov. Nikki Haley planned to visit the coast Wednesday afternoon.

Information for people looking to help families impacted by flooding