December 21, 2015
For days prior to October 1, 2015, forecasters predicted an unusual weather phenomenon was taking shape over the United States that likely would combine with several systems, as well as a plume of tropical moisture from Hurricane Joaquin, that would train heavy amounts of rain through the low-country of South Carolina and move into the central parts of the State. This occurrence of copious moisture and flooding was calculated to remain in place for many hours and even days. Governor Nikki Haley addressed the citizens of the State during several press conferences prior to the rain system’s landfall and referred to the predicted weather occurrence as a possible “Thousand Year Flood” event. In response to the serious warnings of a coming flood, the State Emergency Management Division urged local emergency operations centers to activate their teams to prepare for the days which lay ahead. Fire departments and partner public safety agencies alerted shift personnel and volunteers of probable recall to strengthen manpower availability in support of the fire service’s primary roles and responsibilities with search and rescue operations. Impressive planning and training on the part of our State’s Urban Search and Rescue Team, their HART (Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team) members, and the South Carolina Air National Guard, triggered assets to be prepositioned at the facilities of the State Fire Academy near Columbia. Four(4) Blackhawk helicopters from the S. C. Air National Guard and four (4) from the North Carolina National Guard were stationed at McEntire Air Base along with swift water rescue teams standing by for what was to be a busy several days of operation. Additional air assets from SLED, the Coast Guard, DNR and the Forestry Commission were also utilized extensively during this event. Beginning on Thursday, October 1st, just as forecasted, the rains commenced along the coastal regions with unrelenting downpours and torrents of moisture. Late on Friday and through the weekend, record amounts of rainfall besieged and overwhelmed the rivers, streams, creeks, lakes, ponds and already saturated ground from the coast of South Carolina into the midlands through Sumter, Clarendon, Kershaw, Richland, Calhoun, Orangeburg and Lexington Counties. As water levels rose and flooding was observed, alarm bells and alerts began to ring out in fire departments across the impacted areas of South Carolina. Thousands of firefighters, volunteer and career, were pressed into service and began to respond to calls for assistance from frightened and desperate citizens who were trapped by the rising flood waters and whose escape to safety was risky, and in most cases futile. Local leaders gathered around work stations in emergency operations centers to coordinate the rapidly unfolding disaster. Mandatory evacuations were ordered in many low-lying areas and shelters opened in preparation to house and accommodate the influx of displaced victims. But all the while county and state disaster plans were being implemented, the task of search and rescue pressed hard on local fire services, from the smallest of volunteer fire systems to the largest fully paid fire departments. Interestingly, only a hand full of fire departments in the State have specialty swift water teams available to deploy under flooding conditions, but in the finest traditions of the fire service, smaller departments made use of skilled firefighters utilizing personal johnboats and other innovative flotation devices to effect many rescues and evacuations under the most dangerous conditions imaginable. Lugoff Fire/Rescue, for example, went into action with their new swift water team of eight members. Later in the event, the department was supplemented by the Lancaster County swift water group who sent nine technicians. Sadly, Lugoff experienced one death when a vehicle became trapped with two occupants. The driver died at the scene from drowning but the passenger was saved in a dramatic rescue. Four other vehicle rescues were achieved over the next several hours along with 29 home evacuations which required assistance from the team. One firefighter was injured from the ingestion of the toxic water during a rescue, and three other team members suffered numerous ant and insect bites when they encountered whirlpools of ants floating in the swift moving waters. Lugoff Chief, Dennis Ray, commented that this was the “most helpless feeling that I have ever had in all my years in public safety because of the enormity of the event.” But, he continued, “I have never been more proud of our staff than during this flood.” On Saturday, October 3rd, Governor Nikki Haley called President Obama to request an Emergency Disaster Declaration for a number of counties impacted by the flooding in order to open federal response and aid. On Monday, October 5th, this declaration was extended to almost half of the 46 counties in the State. Record rainfall amounts fell…Columbia and Charleston chronicled the heaviest one day totals in their history. “Unofficial” volunteer observers in four National Weather Service offices in the State reported rainfall amounts in several locations at 2 inches per hour lasting for hours on end. Mt. Pleasant recorded 27.19” from October 1st through October 5th. Other records set throughout the State: Kingstree (24.75”), Charleston (23.89”), Georgetown County (23.5”), Manning (23.46”), Columbia (21.49”), Summerville (21.40”), Moncks Corner (20.87”), Sumter (20.77”), Myrtle Beach (20.13”), Lugoff (19.00”), Coward (17.99”), Jamestown (17.05”), Chapin (17.21”), Florence (14.10”), and Darlington (13.00”). South Carolina’s Firefighter Mobilization Plan was fully operational on Saturday, October 3rd, which provided intrastate mutual aid to support in fire/rescue emergencies that exceeded local capabilities. Numerous requests for outside manpower and assets were processed through the Division of Fire & Life Safety. Within just a few hours, firefighters from neighboring departments unaffected by the flooding began reporting for duty in the already overtaxed fire stations in targeted regions. These self-sufficient mobilized resources provided welcome relief to physically exhausted personnel who had been going nonstop for over 24 hours and who were reaching the far limits of their abilities to function safely. The fire service has always demonstrated its ability to adapt to circumstances at a moment’s notice, and the flooding which was taking place in and around the Columbia area created another opportunity to adapt. Roads leading to the South Carolina Fire Academy were washing away and became impassable. Mobilization and USAR assets quickly relocated operations to the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy where dormitories, classrooms, cafeteria, and parking lots accommodated the shift of resources. At the height of the disaster, nearly 400 personnel were based at the new location. Ponds, lakes, and reservoirs quickly reached their limits, causing 36 dams to breach and spill their contents into neighborhoods, housing developments, businesses and communities. Thousands of culverts and drainage pipes were washed out making safe travel impossible. Throughout the State homes, businesses, and farm lands were in ruin or heavily damaged. Warnings of other potential dam failures were issued to the public which required constant monitoring by responders and elevated their risks to additional dangers. On Sunday, October 4th, state officials recognized that area resources and assets were being stretched to their boundaries and made a request for assistance from Virginia Task Force 1, operated by the Fairfax County (Va.) Fire Department and Virginia Task Force 2 from Virginia Beach. Within six hours, some 80 specialists, 4 dogs, 8 boats, and 19 vehicles were heading to South Carolina. This team of firefighters arrived in Manning about 1:00 P.M. on Monday. During their stay in South Carolina, the teams spread out to several counties to make neighborhood and infrastructure assessments to gauge rescue access points. While data continues to be revised upward, these teams physically assessed over 13,000 homes in partnership with local firefighters, law enforcement and National Guard troops just in Clarendon County alone. Additionally, team members checked well over 1,000 miles of roadways for stability and even assisted utility crews to gain access to flooded areas in order to make temporary repairs to broken communications cables. In addition to the Virginia groups, eighty-eight members from the Tennessee Association of Rescue Squads arrived in the State bringing with them trained swift water technicians and equipment. The Virginia Task Force teams were released from South Carolina a week later on October 12th. Many years ago someone referred to the fire service as the “Community Crisis Agency”, and the flooding caused by these most recent events reinforced the accuracy of that label. For example, fire, DNR and other emergency personnel in Dorchester County found themselves not only rescuing trapped individuals but also animals which had no place to escape. Scores of animal evacuations were made throughout the State only after personnel were assured of the safety of their owners who often refused to leave homes without their beloved pets. According to Dorchester County Fire/Rescue Chief, Tres Atkinson, “as our crews were removing families from their homes, many expressed concern about their animals being left behind. We, too, were not comfortable separating families from their pets…we simply wanted families to remain intact as much as possible. Arrangements were made with animal control to accommodate their animals and pets which included several pigs, goats, dogs, and cats.” Dorchester County and surrounding communities were supported by two Tennessee USAR teams who came to assist as well as teams from the Virginia Task Force 2. As flood waters around Columbia began to break water lines, thoughts about maintaining essential supplies to health care facilities became a priority. Pre-planning by the fire service for this unique scenario called for mobilizing tankers to shuttle water to dump tanks set up around three major hospitals in the area. Unbelievable amounts of water were shuttled by 36 tankers and 9 pumpers to provide constant water supplies to chillers and for other needs at these medical facilities. Tankers from the Clover, Joanna, Newberry and other smaller departments spent hours in staging and waiting their turn to off-load their cargo of water to sustain this operation. This mission demonstrated the versatility of the fire service and its exceptional ability to adapt the model of rural firefighting to municipal and urban applications. Much of the State’s transportation infrastructure of roads and highways quickly deteriorated and
failed which created significant challenges for fire and rescue personnel. Practically all of the interstates in and around Columbia were overrun with flood waters; Interstate 95 was closed from I-26 to I-20 at Florence…nearly 80 miles; scores of other primary and secondary routes were washed away requiring, in some cases, rescuers to travel over thirty miles to circumvent washed out roads in order to get to a call for assistance. Detouring traffic became a nightmare especially for commerce and the thousands of travelers from out of state caught in the middle of this unfolding disaster.
As flood waters spread across secondary and primary roadways, common and very frustrating scenarios were unfolding everywhere…drivers ignoring and actually going around barricades or road closure signs. All affected counties had to deploy assets and personnel to literally hundreds of calls to effect rescues of occupants of drowned out and flooded vehicles which illegally disregarded the warnings of local authorities who constantly pleaded for the public to stay at home or detour their routes of travel.
However, there were many more involuntary instances where vehicles were caught in rising waters in many locations like I-95 in Clarendon County before sufficient numbers of law enforcement officers could stop the flow of traffic. At one point the Clarendon County Fire/Rescue had to ultimately utilize fire apparatus to block both the north and southbound lanes until barricades could be set up.
With I-95 now closed, scores of well-intentioned drivers began to seek alternate routes from their now “recalculating” GPS devices which directed them to travel the north/south route afforded by US 301. Shocked and panicked drivers of passenger vehicles and 18-wheelers found themselves trapped in both directions on this two-lane highway in quickly rising water. Without any avenue of escape, teams of firefighters arrived to direct the backing of each vehicle out of the deepening currents or else remove the occupants from flooded out cars. Even with the quick action of the firefighters, dozens of cars and 18-wheelers had to be abandoned on the flooded highways.
According to Clarendon County’s Deputy Fire Chief, Jonathan Jones, “through no real fault of their own, drivers simply didn’t know where to go, so they tried to find other routes on our back roads, and that’s where we had some serious trouble.” Like other fire departments in the inundated communities, a crew of Clarendon firefighters made a spectacular rescue under extremely dangerous conditions where they were able to maneuver a johnboat in the strong currents of the Black River to remove two people hanging on to their submerged vehicle.
The rains which created flooding from the coast to the upper midlands were soon overshadowed by an equally disastrous, and, for many, greater event downstream. The water in the already swollen rivers were now spreading rapidly down their meandering channels to the coast where they eventually would empty into the Atlantic Ocean. The Edisto, Congaree, Santee, Broad, Wateree, Black, Lynches, Pee Dee, and Waccamaw Rivers impacted areas already hard hit and thrust responders into another major event of unparalleled proportions. Horry County, Marion County, Florence County, Georgetown County, Williamsburg County, Berkeley County, Clarendon County, Orangeburg County, Sumter County, Dorchester County, and Charleston County braced for yet more problems as the water moved closer to the coast.
[caption id="attachment_8030" align="alignright" width="300"]
Highway 301 in Clarendon County[/caption]
In Williamsburg County, rising waters from the Black River created a frightening scene for firefighters. According to Williamsburg County Fire/Rescue Administrator, Rondell Montgomery, “our members had to utilize at least eight boats to rescue trapped residents all over the county. Firefighters reported accounts of people yelling for help from the tops of their homes, and in one case Chief Swinton found a man in a tree nearly 24 hours after the driver’s vehicle was overrun by the swift moving waters.” Montgomery continued, “The lives that were saved in our rural communities are overwhelming. There were so many evacuations of adults and children.” If making rescues by boats were not dangerous enough, firefighters had to move with special attention to what was in the water…poisonous snakes driven from their habitat by the flood. Williamsburg Funeral Home reported caskets coming out of the ground near Hemingway. The Town of Kingstree was literally divided in half by the overflowing Black River. Much of the downtown area was under water and isolated from the outside world except for portions of Highway 52.
As of this writing, 19 people lost their lives caused by the torrential rains and subsequent flooding. A majority of the deaths are attributed to drowning after driving through high waters. Amazingly no firefighters or other responders were killed and only relatively minor injuries were reported. One National Guardsman sustained serious leg injuries when a military vehicle crashed through a washed out roadway in a remote area of Clarendon County during the early days of the disaster.
Many accounts abound of the heroic struggles experienced by our State’s firefighters who risked their lives to save citizens trapped in the strong currents of flooding waters. A Columbia firefighter was caught in swift flowing waters near Tom’s Creek off Bluff Boulevard but was rescued downstream after hanging on to tree limbs for several hours. The audio tapes of this mayday episode capture in “hair raising” clarity the professionalism and skills of these rescue teams to save their brother firefighter.
And, while multiple swift water rescues were taking place all over Columbia and Richland County, a three person team of rescue technicians from the West Columbia Fire Department paired up with Columbia crews to effect a rescue on Wilson Boulevard. Two people were clinging to a car that was being overrun with water. After placing a flotation device on a 70 year old woman, a sudden jarring of the rescue rope caused one of the rescuers to lose his grip on the woman which caused her to be swept downstream into the woods. In a split-second decision, the firefighter unhooked himself from the safety tether and swam after her. After negotiating around a partially destroyed mobile home, he found the woman facedown and holding on to debris. In a miracle rescue, the firefighter made contact and found her to be conscious and alert. The victim and the rescue swimmer were found twenty-two minutes later hanging on to a tree and were safely pulled to safety.
Data from municipal, county, the American Red Cross and state emergency management agencies concerning numbers of people evacuated, rescues made, evacuees sheltered, etc. continue to be gathered and are incomplete. However, we do know the numbers are staggering. A small sampling of fire departments in Columbia, Irmo, North Charleston, Charleston, Kingstree, Williamsburg County, Sumter, Dorchester County, Lugoff, and Clarendon County reveals nearly 4,000 rescues were successfully performed ; some 58 fire departments were mobilized to support the impacted areas; roughly 30 swift water rescue teams were deployed to assist; fire departments alone logged upwards of 175,000 + man hours during the period from October 1st through October 7th. The number of civilians assisted and the number of wellness checks made by firefighters and their partners cannot be measured because of the sheer size of the event and the volume of calls being received and dispatched…literally thousands per hour.
Fire Department Activities
Location Home/Vehicle Evacuations, Assists or Rescues
Columbia/Richland 2,453
Lugoff 34
Irmo 246
North Charleston 92
Kingstree 24
Williamsburg County 120
Clarendon County 402
Dorchester County 110
City of Charleston 85
City of Sumter/County 226
Total 3,792
**The above sampling of ten fire departments in the State does not reflect evacuations or rescues performed by civilians or local law enforcement agencies, DNR and National Guard.
The American Red Cross reports that 35 shelters were opened and does not include religious groups/churches which housed evacuees. Additionally, the Red Cross logged over 4,786 overnight stays during the period of October 3rd through October 7th. Interestingly, a group of thirteen active duty and retired FDNY members spent time in South Carolina assisting with flood relief in the Horry and Conway areas. They are part the FDNY Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) who donate their vacation time to deploy to disaster sites around the country.
Through the strong network of member departments, the staff of the South Carolina State Firefighters’ Association have been made aware of a number of firefighters in the State who have personally suffered significant losses to their homes and property. Eight firefighters in Sumter County, six in North Charleston, two in Lee County and one in Williamsburg County were displaced during the flood.
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Effected firefighters in Sumter[/caption]
Sumter Fire Captain Robert Moses said “water started coming in to my home about 10:15 A.M. on Sunday. My family and I got out with only the clothes on our backs. I took my family to the in-laws and came on to work at the fire department. I never thought I would ever see this kind of flooding in my lifetime. It was a desperate feeling.” Sumter Firefighter J. T. Coursey commented that the flood was “unreal. You see things like this on TV, but it’s not supposed to be here.” Coursey revealed he has no flood insurance to cover his losses, only a small amount of FEMA money to assist with the damage. There are others experiencing similar losses like Sumter Lt. Ken Wixey and his family who have been living in a hotel for a number of weeks since the flooding damaged his home. Looking tired and weary from the ordeal, Wixey simply described his experiences as “a nightmare."
The South Carolina State Firefighters’ Association fully expects to learn of many more firefighters in the State in need of support and encouragement. The Association has asked that the public consider donating money to the Firefighters’ Foundation and Endowment to help those volunteer and career members who were called to duty when the floods threatened so many of our citizens. Any money collected will go directly to our State’s firefighters who suffered losses. Donations are tax deductible.
As South Carolina’s “Thousand Year Flood” is chronicled in the history books of natural disasters, recovery and relief efforts continue for thousands of citizens and will likely require many months or even years to get back to some form of normalcy. For many residents and business owners, this flood event will necessitate rebuilding from the ground up. Much of our State’s infrastructure, highways and secondary roadways will not be rebuilt or even repaired overnight. The emotional scars imbedded in the minds of many children, adults, and senior citizens will require special attention and monitoring by school officials and community service groups for years.
State and local government officials, emergency preparedness managers, first responders, Red Cross personnel, social services agency staff, transportation authorities, the National Guard, school administrators, and other groups will be pouring over after-action reports in the short term. Once a comprehensive review of the State’s response and recovery efforts has been completed, the lessons learned will be made available and shared.
To be sure, many lessons have already been learned by the fire service from this event that will become part of its protocols going forward. As one studies the rich history of South Carolina’s fire service, it is clear that its legacy of courage, compassion, and devotion to duty will remain a source of confidence and reassurance to the millions of citizens who call South Carolina home. The spirit of our fire service, comprised of over 17,500 firefighters, career and volunteer, is only bolstered by this most recent disaster, and, to use the motto of New York’s first organized fire company back in 1731…”Where duty calls, there you will find us.”
Many thanks to those agencies and individuals listed below who contributed to this article.
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