The rain may have stopped, but South Carolina is grappling with a host of new concerns: Dam breaks. Billions of dollars in damage. And rivers that still haven’t crested yet.
Here’s the latest on the mammoth flooding tormenting the region:
Dam breaks
At least 18 dams have breached or failed in South Carolina since Saturday, the state’s emergency management agency said early Tuesday.
One failure, of the Overcreek dam in Forest Acres, sent a torrent of floodwater raging downstream and forced a mandatory evacuations near Columbia.
Gov. Nikki Haley said more evacuations are likely as flood waters rise in some places.
Death toll rises
So far, at least 13 people have died in weather-related incidents, including 11 in South Carolina and two in North Carolina.
In South Carolina, seven people drowned and four died in traffic accidents, the state’s department of public safety said.
North Carolina reported two deaths from traffic accidents, in Cumberland and Jackson Counties, a state emergency management spokeswoman said.
Caskets float away
Of all the items that have drifted away in the flooding, perhaps none was more significant than a casket unearthed from a South Carolina cemetery.
Paster Wayne Reeves of New Life Ministries in Summerville was in the middle of an interview when he saw the casket float away.
So he headed into the waist-deep floodwater to retrieve it.
“That’s somebody’s family out there,” he told CNN affiliate WCBD. “That’s (a) family suffering. That’s their family there that popped up from under the ground. And I think it’s the human thing to do.”
The casket, still adorned with white-and-pink flowers, carried the remains of a woman buried in May, WCBD said. Another casket, that of the woman’s husband, also drifted away but was later recovered by Dorchester County sheriff’s officials.
As it turned out, the woman’s family was watching nearby as Reeves went into the water.
“This family don’t want to sit on the edge of this road all night long watching their family members bob in the water like that,” the pastor told WCBD.
“If that was my mom or my dad, I’d walk through hell and high water. And today it happened to be high water.”
Apartments get looted
Some Columbia residents left their homes as victims of flooding. They came to find their homes looted.
On Sunday, an apparent dam breach led to the flooding of the Willow Creek Apartments, property manager Heather Lovell told CNN affiliate WACH.
So rescue crews on boats came to the complex and helped residents to safety.
On Monday, Pamela Courts returned to her apartment and found not just flood damage, but signs of theft.
“Overnight we had a break-in, so whatever was upstairs they came and took: TVs jewelry, everything,” she told WACH.
Resident Juamaame Evins told the affiliate he was trying to stay positive despite the back-to-back hardships.
“Even though we lost everything and stuff got stolen, we can rebuild together and help each other and be each other’s backbones and carry each other through this time because we need each other,” he said.
Rivers still rising
The flooding is far from over. Rivers might not crest for another two weeks, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said.
And the mayor of Columbia is bracing for more trouble.
“I believe that things will get worse before they get better,” Mayor Steve Benjamin said Monday.
“I anticipate that damage will probably be in the billions of dollars, and we’re going to have to work to rebuild,” he said.
“Some peoples’ lives as they know them will never be the same.”