CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – The city is seeing record flooding after Hurricane Florence and one neighborhood near the Waccamaw River is under about six feet of water.
There’s a boat ramp at the end of Pitch Landing Road into the Waccamaw River, but the road is now a makeshift boat launch. It’s normally a short car drive down that road from U.S. Highway 701 to Bob Joncas’s home in the South Ferry neighborhood.
All 18 homes in South Ferry are surrounded by six feet of flood water from Hurricane Florence.
“These are all great people who pretty much lost everything,” said Joncas.
Joncas says he expected some flooding around his home, which is about half a mile from the Waccamaw River, but not as bad as what he’s seen.
“My house is empty except for my baby grand piano,” he said.
Some houses in South Ferry were renovated after Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and purchased about three months ago.
“Most of these houses are on septic tanks,” Joncas said. “Guess where that water’s at?”
The houses may be condemned as Florence’s floods take nearly everything families own.
“It’s going to be disastrous for a lot of people that didn’t have flood insurance because there’s a few in here that didn’t,” Joncas said.
When all the water dries up, Joncas says he’ll knock his house down if he has to and rebuild it right where it is now.
“It’s just stuff,” he said. “That’s all. There’s some people that didn’t survive this storm.”
The Waccamaw River is forecasted to crest in Conway on Wednesday, but some living in the Pitch Landing area say it may take more than a week to get to their homes and months to rebuild.
