Charleston, South Carolina — Downtown Charleston suffered substantial coastal flooding earlier this afternoon, with seas rising three feet above average.
The floods forced the closure of dozens of roadways for many hours and brought saltwater into residential areas.
Susan Lyons, a resident, characterized the impact on her property as frustrating.
“My street floods, my yard floods, my driveway floods,” she was saying. “I have a pool in the back and a pool house, which floods. So I’ve had to switch off my pumps because if I keep them on, they’ll burn out.”
Lyons reported roughly eight inches of standing water in her driveway, which she said could have damaged her car’s engine.
Charleston police tried to manage traffic in the impacted neighborhoods, while the city’s emergency response team sought to make changes.
Stephen Davis, the city’s emergency manager, underlined the significance of prevention.
“You’re in there and now you’re a rescue and we want to prevent that and that’s why we’re out here now, preventing that,” Davis told reporters.
Lyons, a longtime resident, voiced unhappiness with the developments.
“When I moved here in 2004, this area was in a drought and there was no indication that anything like this was going to happen,” she informed me.
Residents on Gadson Street, just a few blocks from the water, took matters into their own hands, erecting obstacles to keep vehicles from driving through flooded areas.
Lyons commented, “It feels neglected.” The barriers are sitting on the corners, and when the street starts to fill up, no one comes to put them in.” She went on: “We get a lot of wake kicked up into our property and, it’s frustrating.”
Lyons also stated that much of the clogging in storm drains is caused by garden mulch, which rises with the tides and exacerbates floods.
