HORRY COUNTY, SC (WBTW) – Flooding in some neighborhoods is lingering nearly three weeks after Hurricane Florence made landfall in the Carolinas, like the Rosewood Estates neighborhood of Socastee, where many people still can’t return to their homes.
The Intracoastal Waterway almost flooded up to the roofs of some homes in Rosewood. Residents there say this is the worst flooding they’ve ever seen in the neighborhood.
It’s a long wait to see damage at home for Joe Reid, who got nearly everything out of his Dogwood Circle home before it flooded.
“It’s going down slowly,” Reid said. “We’re still looking at a few days before we can get back in there.”
Reid says he learned from Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
“When Matthew came, we had to tear out all the Sheetrock, the floor, everything and had to throw out all my furniture,” said Reid. “Luckily, we got it out this time.”
Drone footage showed just how high the flood got in Rosewood, with water nearly touching roofs of houses.
Reid says the water on Dogwood Circle wasn’t that high, but he says his home had about four feet of water around it at peak flooding.
“Those people behind me, they’re in a lot worse shape,” he said.
Since then, the water has only gone down by about two feet and several roads in Rosewood are still completely underwater.
Residents like Reid say they may have to wait until the end of the week, if not longer, to see just how much Hurricane Florence’s floods left behind in their homes.
“Nobody knew exactly how high it was going to go and you can tell how high it went,” Reid said. “Right now, there’s nothing else we can do until it goes down to see the damage on the inside.”
The National Weather Service flood gauge on the Intracoastal Waterway in Socastee says the flood level is still about a foot above its previous record from Hurricane Matthew, even though the waterway crested on Thursday.
