CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – Flooding on the Waccamaw River set record levels earlier this week, cresting at 17.89 feet. That is more than a foot and a half higher than we saw in last year’s historic flooding and beat the previous high water mark of 17.80 feet, set back in 1928.
The flooding has impacted homeowners throughout Horry County, many of whom, faced similar problems last year and now have to wait until waters recede before cleaning up all over again.
The Waccamaw is slow to rise and also slow to fall; so property owners and volunteers willing to lend a hand have to wait at least a week before they can start tearing down sheetrock, removing carpeting and begin de-molding homes.
It’s a process relief workers refer to as mudding out. “There’s just going to be hundreds of homes, we have identified about 400 that are flooded that we are going to need to mud out,” said Todd Wood, director of Impact Ministries.
Impact Ministries is in charge of the local volunteer organizations active in disaster, they’ve teamed up with the Red Cross to get mud out kits ready so homeowners will be supplied with things like buckets and shovels to start the process.
There will also be a great need for helping hands, as some homeowners don’t have the ability to clean up on their own and organizers of relief efforts want volunteers to be ready the moment the water does goes down.
“We’re about a week out before we can into a lot of these flooded homes, so we’re starting to take names again for volunteers, if you want to start volunteering on the weekends we’d love to have you partner up with us and go into the homes and help these families,” said Wood.
If you’d like to volunteer to help with the clean up contact myrtlebeachdisasterrelief.com.
If you want to make a donation, Wood asks that you can contact the Waccamaw Community Foundation, who partners with area charities to make sure every dollar given is spent here locally.
