Just curious about what's going on out there.  News here is reporting 9 dams have broken and reports of homes looted after evacuation.  What's the situation.

I to am wondering...  Surprised there wasn't any threads on it yet.  This is real life SHTF for many.

Perhaps this should be asked in Hometown?

Probably better to ask in GD, many more people are there.

Non-event in my place.  I think the worst is satellite TV was finicky on Saturday night.

Edit for typo.

All good in Mt Pleasant.  Lots of rain but not much flooding.  It appears most of the water from the upstate will drain north or south of us, thanks USACE.

I went to the So Clina (Civil War verbiage) Hometown forum page and they say it's OK in Chucktown (I take that to mean Charleston).

I have a really close friend in Columbia. Reports from him are "it's bad". I know his church has been driving all around the affected areas in trucks delivering bottled water and non-potable water for toilet flushing etc. Many without power/water services.

Thankfully my friend's home is mostly in the clear; lots of rain and standing water in his yard but no flooding in the home and last I talked to him they did have power...

All good at my place.  However, friends near Columbia have it bad.  A friend's apartment complex has been free of standing water, but all tap water is brown.  Order is to boil all water.  Water and electrical service has been spotty in Columbia.  One apartment complex was using swimming pool water to flush the toilets.  Baptist Hospital had to have water brought in.  

A water filter, like a Katadyn or Berkey or MSR would have been really handy for most folks. Sams still had loads of bottled water yesterday, so some folks have stocked up.  Foods that don't require refrigeration have been great for them also.

It really shows how unprepared folks are for a natural disaster.  In reality, the flooding was very limited in scope compared to the unaffected areas.  There was the National Guard to help.  Stores did not run out of water it appears.  A disaster of larger scale could have been very bad.  Folks in the midlands of SC are not very prepared at all, as usually no hurricanes affect them much.

We're just west of Columbia by about an hour (near Augusta, GA).  We got wet, but they got pounded...drainage is still proving to be a significant problem with flooding.  We have several from the installation who live in North Augusta, SC or Aiken and some neighborhoods were hit pretty hard.  It's weird as our chaplain owns property near their with a lake and it was already a couple feet low and just filled up with no flooding.  One interesting aspect for those living in rural areas is to know the condition of the bridges near your home as several of the smaller bridges received significant structural damage which could cause some isolation or serious re-routing problems.

ROCK6

How are the dams holding up in NC?

My sister outside Myrtle Beach is not having too hard of a time and is actually going back to work tomorrow. I have a friend in Columbia who says its hell. They live 1 hour 15 minutes apart.

I am in northeast Columbia and luckily my neighborhood had zero damage but just a couple miles up the road had several feet of water in the roads and businesses.

Some areas got hit a lot harder than others. We are still on a boil water advisory here in Richland County but we never lost power or water pressure. The local stores have tons of bottled water for sale and there are numerous distribution centers for those who are in need.

In the Midlands it seems that we are on to cleanup stage and managing some of the weakened dams in the area.

If you are interested in seeing pictures or watching live feeds WISTV is a local station.

School districts in Lexington and Richland counties are closed for the 4th day in a row. A couple of schools are being used as shelters.

Columbia is having pretty bad issues trying to keep water pressure up with all of the broken water mains. The city gets its water from the Broad River and were busy shoring up the levees holding it in place when it breached about 60' or so... and the city had to fix it which they did.

Most of Columbia's .gov buildings are closed the rest of the week.

Freeways and highways are open. Some area roads are still washed out.

Clarendon Sc according to facebook is isolated because the roads washed out. (Not sure about that being true or not.)

Traffic on my way to work this morning seemed to be back to normal.

Gonna add my two cents. My house is a half mile away from the Broad River's edge, and our neighborhood experienced minimal flooding, but I have family scattered in all points across Columbia. I didnt have any outages, but i did turn my water off for a day to test our skills/preps. Here's what happened and what I learned:

Richland county has a LOT of ponds and lakes. More than 2000 dams. All of these are natural dams, or a small concrete dam with natural berms on each side. After the rain became too much, the natural barriers eroded, releasing lake waters into communities, worsening the damaging flood effect. If there was a road built atop that damn or lake barrier to access a neighborhood (see Arcadia Lakes), the road was washed away and access in or out limited or eliminated. Your brodozer wont get you out. FORGET IT.

The area ponds and lakes are empty now. We will be in severe drought stages for a year or more. Forget your plan of fishing in that pond up the road if shtf. The fish are gone. The water is gone.

Our roads are asphalt laid on top of packed dirt/clay dirt. There is no rock base to this. The rain water seeped into the ground, saturated it, then washed the dirt under the asphalt downstream with it, leaving the road to collapse from no support.

Our water infrastructure was laid under our roads to protect the pipes from cracks and such. But with no roads to protect them, and no more dirt to support them, the pipes have sagged and broken. The visible portions will be fixed along with the roadway, but the portions still hidden under yet unbroken asphalt will continue to pollute our water supply until they are discovered. Bottled water reserves will need to be conserved and replenished for a long time after this event. Think months. And you cant just run up to a bottled water distribution site if the road or bridge to your community is gone, leaving a 20ft deep hole in the ground.

Look at topographical maps of your home and see where your home sits relative to its surroundings. Base your plan of having flood insurance on that. The Willow Creek apt complex is abut a mile from me and that is where the picture of people being rescued in a boat is from. That apt complex is way below its surrounding areas and there is a small creek behind it which is fed from drainage ditches. That creek swole from all the rain drainage and the rain draining from the strret level is what flooded them out.

Have a three step water plan. I have a huge cistern replenished with rain water collection, but having two kids and one visitor when this happened, and three of five occupants in the home were on their menstrual cycle, we went through A LOT of water from washing up and toilet use. You can use paper plates to avoid washing dishes often, but those pots and pans arent made from paper. Gotta wash those.

Boiling water is a fucking nighmare. If your power goes out you need a lot of fuel to boil that water for every day. Water from the cistern was boiled to conserve bottled drinking water. Water was boiled for washing up (the ladies were washing twice a day plus using baby wipes due to their cycles). Water was boiled for cooking (cant grill canned veggies). Water was boiled for washing dishes (not necessary unless your water stops, then its the only way to get hot water). Get more funnels of different sizes for pouring boiled water into containers.

Do you have an old school mop, or a Swiffer and steam mop? You need a mop and bucket.

Put a rolling hard case into your bug out kit it will keep your belongings dry, easy to move around, and lockable in case you get manditory evac'd to a center. I volunteered for most of the week at a local shelter which is my kid's middle school so i saw what belongings people grabbed and what they needed. Lots of sketchy mfs were there, and no security measures in place to prevent theft. Expect lots of kids, babies and old people. Expect lots of coughing, doo doo diapers, and disease spreading. The water went out at the shelter on day two. They bussed people out of there to another shelter which had to strain resources and space there. You also need pillows in your bug out kit. The red cross had blankets and cots but no pillows

My job had limited opening due to water outage. They got portajohns, but the portajohn company wont be able to clean them out for FIVE days because he has jobs everywhere else.

Snakes everywhere. Turtles too. No gators yet, but reptiles and amphibians are in full effect. Get snake shot and carry it with you while working around the house. I've identified two venomous snakes in my yard. The rest were harmless.

As of yesterday, we had three days of sun, and the ground was still wet. Trees have been falling from the roots having nothing to hold them. Some fell in the road, blocking the street. Some fell on roofs. Some fell on cars. Its now raining again and the ground never dried out.

If you have kids, have games to play. Our teenaged kids played poker with us. Monopoly gets old quick. We have old games from when they were little that arent going to get used, like Candy Land. Get rid of that old stuff; use the space for other things.

Kids whine and complain. Especially during a crisis. Even more when you put them to work during a crisis. Kids nowadays with their devices and luxuries arent built for a world without power or running water. The whining gets old. Have a place to go to clear your head for a while so you dont do them all in during the middle of the night.

Have comfort snacks and powdered drink packets for adding to your water. Hot cocoa on day one was a treat. Wine and cocktails the rest of the week were a necessity.

Keep the storm drains on your street clear of debris during the storm. No one else will and everyone will watch the flood waters rise before grabbing a rake or hoe to clear them out.

Check on your elderly neighbors. For real. Check door to door. One of mine slipped and fell using the restroom and we heard her yelling for help while going door to door. Luckily our neighborhood's roads werent impassable for an ambulance.

Final thoughts: if you have kids/teens, they are your weak spot in your preparedness plan.  They are your biggest responsibilty and your biggest liability during a crisis. When school is out, they are home. If you arent there to watch and control them, they will consume resources. They will ignore the plan you meticulously crafted for the household and just wing it until you show up to scold them. They cant wrap their minds around the idea that things might be worse tommorow or even an hour from now. You can put them to work, but for only so long - they are kids and you gotta let them enjoy life. You cant have a "Thrive, not just survive" mantra but then run the place like a prison. Kids consume much but contribute very little. They consume food, water, energy, space, time, and your patience; and they dont have the means to replace any of that after having consumed it. If you have created an emergency plan that includes your kids, but didnt include them in the process of creating it, they will be disconnected from it and wont follow it. I plan to redo our plan in the next week in a round table fashion and include them in the do's and dont's. If they are a part of the process and understand the why's behind the what's, they should feel more willing and obligated to follow it. Maybe create an emergency chore list too so they know what to do with their down time. Protip: If you have advance warning for a disaster, hit up the library for some new books to read. Nobody wanted to read the same old dusty stories theyve read a dozen times already.

that is one hell of a great post! THANKS!