Oct. 06--After days of historic rain and flooding that tore through South Carolina's capital city, the sun came out Tuesday, yet officials warned of trying times ahead as residents cope with the misery of soggy homes, the lack of drinking water and crippled roads.
The number of deaths in South Carolina rose to 14, Gov. Nikki Haley said at a morning briefing as she assessed the record-setting rain storms that swelled rivers and streams, breached dams, washed away parts of highways and forced hundreds of emergency water rescues.
"God smiled on South Carolina because the sun is out," Haley told reporters. "That is a good sign, but for us, we still have to be cautious.
"For the next 24 to 36 hours, we are going to be extremely careful. We are watching this minute by minute."
Haley outlined the scope of the disaster that has touched all of the state's 46 counties. About 470 roads are closed, including 163 bridges.
An estimated 824 people have sought refuge in 26 shelters, and more evacuations could be ordered as the floodwaters work their way through the state's midlands to the low country along the coast, she said.
"Don't let the sunshine fool you," the governor warned, while adding that "we are prepared," to deal with the continuing emergency.
Haley and other state officials flew over the damage Tuesday morning.
"It was disturbing," said Haley. Officials have not yet calculated the cost of the damage, and there is no tally on the number of homes and buildings that have been flooded.
SIGN UP for the free Great Reads newsletter >>
"It is hard to look at the loss we will have," Haley said. "But we will be OK."
"South Carolina has once again proven we are strong and we are resilient," she insisted.
"I have no doubt South Carolina today is better than yesterday and we will be stronger next week than we are now," she said. "This is a time of faith and we will not stop until everything is taken care of."
Officials have called the storms a one-in-1,000-year rain and flooding event, setting rainfall records across the state.
Water distribution remained a key problem for Columbia, with as many as 40,000 homes lacking service. The rest of the city's approximately 375,000 water customers have been told that as a safety measure they should boil water for at least one minute before using it for drinking or cooking.
Mayor Steve Benjamin told reporters on Tuesday that the water order is likely to be in effect for "quite some time." The city was planning to open more water distribution centers.
Officials brought bottled water and portable restrooms for 31,000 students at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Firefighters used trucks and pumps to ferry hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to Palmetto Health Baptist Hospital.
On Tuesday morning in Columbia, Idella T. Dingle gingerly opened the front door to her modest three-bedroom apartment and held up her cellphone to illuminate a pile of damp debris -- clothes, magazines, overturned televisions -- strewn across the muddy carpet.
"I lost everything -- there's nothing to salvage," Dingle, 34, a care provider for people with special needs, said Tuesday as she stepped slowly from room to room snapping photographs to document the water damage. "All I have now is the clothes on my back."
The parking lot outside Dingle's home was filled with thick brown sludge that covered the cars, including her gray Honda Accord.
The tiny creek that winds through the Willow Creek Apartments at St. Andrews, in the northwest suburbs of greater Columbia, flooded nearly all the ground-floor homes of the complex early Monday, filling the apartment Dingle shared with her daughter and mother to chest level with muddy water. Dingle woke to the screams of her daughter, Mikayla.
The family climbed a flight of steps outside the apartment and eventually had to scale a Ford Crown Victoria to climb aboard a rescue boat.
The apartment complex's grounds were strewn with lamps, golf balls, and page after page of a Little Miss Muffet picture book. Outside the administrative office, a neat row of wet paperwork and purchase orders was lined up on a plastic table to dry in the sun as workers unloaded heavy-duty garbage bags and cleaning supplies from a pickup truck.
"We've got the muscle power," the apartment complex manager said cheerily to a resident.
Dingle had little hope of returning, though.
After staying Sunday and Monday nights in a nearby Sleep Inn, she planned to apply for FEMA assistance and look for a new apartment -- a challenge, she noted, given that she had paid all her bills at the first of the month and had only $600 in her bank account.
"We can't go back," she said. "I have to find a new place to stay."
ALSO:
Can American Apparel really stay in L.A.?
Doctors Without Borders says its Afghan hospital 'was deliberately bombed'
Farmworkers find a bumper crop of squalor in Coachella Valley trailer parks
