Many of those were in the Columbia area.
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Three people managed to get out safely but told emergency crews two others did not.
Gov. Nikki Haley and other officials issued warnings about drivers ignoring barricades, citing the accident that killed Vance and McDonald.
“Actually we are just really glad to see everyone doing what needs to be done to take care of the dam”, she said. He said it took 7 hours to drive from Columbia to Georgetown because of the flooding along the way. The company is working with public safety agencies to determine exactly what happened, he said.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said in a statement Friday that people should be careful when making donations for flood victims.
As many as 15 people have lost their lives to flooding in South Carolina. The level of the lake had dropped more than six feet by early Wednesday, officials said.
Emergency responders in Richland County said they were still searching for another person who was unaccounted for after a truck carrying five people drove around road barriers at about 3 a.m. ET and got caught in floodwaters resulting from the historic rainfall in the state. As the coffins are discovered, they are being moved to county facilities where they will be held until further arrangements can be made.
Waters rose on rivers downstream from the Midlands, putting communities from Conway to Williamsburg on alert. That aid likely will come with requirements that bridges and dams be built to stronger, more expensive standards. One dam was breached intentionally to alleviate pressure. In Lee County, a failed dam flooded a 30-acre pond, which washed out a road.
A dam in Richmond County was allowed to be breached. More than 60 are being monitored.
The rainstorm has also been blamed for the deaths of two people in North Carolina.
Haley called the damage “disturbing” and said both state and federal officials were assessing the extent of the loss, as members of the National Guard were assisting with sandbagging and other operations to mitigate the situation.
Late on Friday afternoon, heavy machinery could be seen shifting and moving numerous large boulders that had been stacked in the canal during the construction of the temporary dam.
“So they’re supposed to be inspecting high hazard dams about every two years and they’re pretty behind on that schedule”, she told us.
In the capital city, officials sought to dispel rumors the Columbia was on the verge of running out of water.
A big question that a lot of people want answered: when will the boil water advisory be lifted? Officials also caution customers to conserve water usage while crews work to fix damage to the city’s main water source.
Water from the canal normally flows directly into the reservoir at the city’s water treatment plant. Lexington County is providing extra trash containers to dispose of storm debris.
She compared South Carolina to the state of Colorado, saying several years ago a major flooding event took place in Colorado. The section of I-95 between I-20 and I-26 remained open only to local traffic.
But that was before 20 inches or more of rain fell in a few areas.
The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources suspended deer hunting until Monday in areas hit hard by the severe rains and flooding.
The University of South Carolina, where classes were canceled for the week, has moved Saturday’s scheduled football game against Louisiana State University to Baton Rouge.
Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Curtis Wilson said the barricade was in the wrong lane, but regardless, the railroad workers should not have been out because there was a city-wide curfew in place.
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“What we have is a stormwater system that essentially depends on the last storm being long gone before the next one shows up. inety-nine percent of the time, it’s a system that works well enough”.
