NICHOLS, SC (WBTW) – The SC Department of Employment and Workforce released its latest jobless numbers this week. While South Carolina improved as a whole according to the December report, the least employed part of our state is Marion County, with nearly a thousand people out of work in towns hard-hit by last October’s Hurricane in the final month of 2016.
Nichols Town Clerk Sandee Rogers had only two words to describe the scene as townspeople realized the flood waters were rising too fast.
“Heartbreaking and chaotic,” she said, the pain of her words evident on her face. “To watch the floodwaters come in so fast and to watch everybody lose everything so fast.”
When the rain, wind, and floodwaters came last October, residents were forced to abandon their homes–and their businesses. Today, of the 22 businesses in Nichols before the storm, only seven are now back up and running.
“The Sunny Mart, that’s where everyone gathers,” Rogers listed. The Nichols staple reopened it’s seven-day-a-week store earlier this month. Rogers listed other business owners made it a point to come back as soon as they could.
“We worked really hard to get Dollar General back and they came back in very quickly,”
“It was devastating for everyone,”recalled Nichols native Albert Brayfield. “No one could come in or out.”
Brayfield Tire & Automotive is Albert’s business and passion, and his family’s lifeblood. That’s why as soon as they were able to return, Brayfield and family headed back to help out all they could.
“It was rough,” Brayfield said. “There was a lot of cleaning involved,”
Once they were safely back in town, Brayfield used his skills as a mechanic to help him and many other businesses around him recover from the storm.
:”Carolina Eastern, we worked out with them a lot,” Brayfield listed. “Nichols Farm Supply, help them get that back going.”
Sandee Rogers said examples like Brayfield’s of neighbors helping neighbors is why she she sill has hope for this small town.
“We’re really worth saving,” Rogers lamented. “The town itself is so close-knit, and what we have to offer is really worth saving.”
Rogers, though, said to bring Nichols back will have to mean change as well.
“We’ll never reach normal again, we’re gonna reach a new normal.”
And while most major plans will have to wait until the recovery is complete, Rogers hopes the new Nichols will lead Marion County into the future
“Between Dillon County and Horry County, we are logistically in a beautiful spot to be able to make a lot of things happen for Marion County,” Rogers declared. “We can be so much more than what it is.”
Rogers said only 10 percent of the town’s population has returned to Nichols so far, and disaster recovery teams and volunteers continue the cleanup and repairs around town. She also said though, that several plans are in the works for major overhaul of the downtown area.
