♪ ♪ Welcome to a "This Week in South Carolina" special report.

I'm Gavin Jackson.

Over the span of several days of steady rainfall in early October 2015, rainfall records were shattered from the coast to the Midlands.

That led to nearly 50 dams failing, rivers, neighborhoods and roads flooding, 1500 water rescues, Tens of thousands of people displaced, disruption to the Columbia water system and hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, as well as 19 lives lost in what is known as the Thousand Year Flood.

It was a distressing time, especially in the Midlands in the city of Columbia, which was pummeled with rain.

In this episode, we look back at the disaster, speak with the people closest to it and the changes that have been made to make areas more resilient in the face of changing climate threats.

I want to start us off by talking to a familiar voice, South Carolina Public Radio's George Kearns.

He and several others at SCETV were stuck in the office for days as nearby roads were flooded.

He and others maintained operations in critical communications during that time, and he remained on the radio throughout the disaster, reporting the latest.

Here's part of his morning report from October 3rd, 2015.

George Kearns> Good morning, I'm George Kearns with a special weather statement for South Carolina Public Radio.

A huge rainfall event is about to begin in South Carolina.

The latest projections have more than ten inches of rain accumulating in Charleston, more than ten inches as well in Orangeburg, as much as 17 inches in some parts of the Midlands, and anywhere from 4 to 8 inches of additional rain in the upstate.

Governor Haley is imploring you to please be careful.

Gov.

Haley> This is a time we need you to be prepared.

This is a time that we need you to take care of your family.

Know where your kids are going to be.

They need to be at home.

Don't plan on going any places that you don't have to go.

George Kearns> More updates throughout the day.

Stay tuned to South Carolina Public Radio.

John Gasque and I came in expecting to be here all day, and then at the end of the day, we thought we'd be going home, not realizing all the roads around the studios were shut down.

We were, we were here.

That was, that was it.

And I showed up early on a Saturday morning and finally got home at about noon on Tuesday.

Again, John and I lived on Diet Pepsi and peanut butter crackers for three and a half days.

And, you know, we laugh about it now, but we were none too happy about it, by that Tuesday morning.

It was hard because we didn't have the boots on the ground that we would typically have covering a news story like this because our reporters couldn't get out either.

So, John and I depended on phone calls.

You know, EMD was great.

They've always been great with us.

The National Weather Service, both in Columbia, Charleston and in Wilmington.

We talked to all of them.

We had the content available.

We just had to work a little harder for it.

Gavin> And then, George to that, when you look back and you, and you think about what you covered and just how intense that story was, I mean, something that a thousand year flood, words we don't usually say in a given year.

We say hurricanes, we say floods, but we don't say thousand year flood.

What was it like to see that kind of devastation and to report on that level of devastation?

George> You know, I tell you, it's kind of, it's kind of surreal.

My most vivid memory came after the weekend.

You know, once I had gone home after the coverage, the coverage was hectic.

You know, we were just going all day, all night.

So, not a lot, really stood out.

It was just more of the same, more of the same.

On the Wednesday coming back into work for Wednesday morning news, I'm driving through downtown Columbia at 4:00 in the morning, and it was almost dystopian.

You know, I was on the road alone, except for dump trucks and trailers, hauling bulldozers and trucks and trailers full of sandbags.

And a lot of things were shut down, and vacant lots had been turned into, sandbag stations, because I had to go by the Columbia Canal, which suffered its share of damage.

And it was really a very surreal, very, very grim.

And that's kind of what I remember the most.

It was a very bizarre drive through downtown Columbia.

Gavin> And then just kind of wrapping up, George, when you, you know, you still see it's been ten years later, you've see how we've changed as a city, anything maybe stick out to you as a reminder of those days when you drive by something or you see something, you think back?

George> It it upset so many people's day to day routine, not just for that weekend, but literally for years afterwards.

So, hopefully we've learned a little bit of a lesson.

I mean, like you said, we can't plan on a thousand year flood, but should anything like this, we still get plenty of storms.

We still have hurricanes to deal with.

Gavin> It kind of made me think really quick, just, if there is any if there's a point during all this when you were here Saturday or Tuesday, were you like, "What more is going to happen?"

Right.

You're talking about the dams flooding and going over there, supports and sometimes, you know, completely falling apart, too.

You have this never ending rain happening, then you have the dams failing, I mean, did it ever seem like when the rivers were going up and cresting and flooding, did it ever seem like it was going to stop, or were you trying to stay as cool as possible in these situations?

George> It really did, I mean, I wasn't able to get outside of the studios too much, but the few times I did, we've seen heavy rain all across this state, and some of those summer storms come down in buckets that weekend wasn't like that.

It was a moderate rain, but it just didn't stop.

It just kept going day and night and, and you're right.

You know, you stand out back and you look around and there's no cars on the road.

And, you know, some of the lights are out and it's just constant rain.

And then, you know, walk around 2 or 3 hours later, it's the exact same.

And it gets a little it's a, it was a little frightening for a while.

You got to wonder to yourself just what's going on.

And when is this going to stop?

Luckily, you know, three and a half days later, it finally let up.

>> The Midlands, and specifically the city of Columbia, experienced the worst damage from the flood with the steady rain, swelling waterways and lakes that have never seen such rain.

Rivers and creeks overran their banks and dams failed, leading to catastrophic and deadly flooding in areas that typically don't see such activity.

And on top of that, the Columbia Canal, which supplies the capital city's drinking water supply, suffered a breach.

Columbia City Manager Teresa Wilson, along with then Mayor Steve Benjamin, led the immediate response, with emergency officials and the work to fully restore and safeguard the canal continues today amid ongoing tests like Hurricane Helene last year.

So you're planning for the worst, like everyone does, but I mean, did the worst kind of come true?

Teresa Wilson> The worst definitely came true.

Probably, and then some, because, you know, we, we really, you know, you think about first responders and the roles we play, and we also have our own families, you know, that we had to... I'll never forget.

You know, we, fortunately, at that time I lived very close to my parents down the street, and I had, my daughter, who is 22 now, It was, I think she was 11 at the time.

And so I just remember that morning, when I was still at my house in the wee hours of the morning and I was getting calls from the chiefs and all, and they were like, we got to come probably pick you up.

So what's, what, how do you want us to do this?

And I was like, well I have to get out this street and I had to just get her down the street.

Come on, mom!

And even at that point getting out of the house like we couldn't see, you know, it was that was Northwest Columbia.

And even down the street from me, one of just the small bridges had, you know, been overtaken with water and I think someone out of a car or something had gone into that small little pond area.

And so it was, it was just very, difficult.

But I had, but, you know, I had to, you know, get myself centered.

And once I had her straight, I was good.

I was like, "Okay, let's go.

"We gotta, we gotta get this done."

So calling, our media partners to begin to get some reassurances to the public because the 9-1-1 communication system was just being inundated with calls.

And I think those are some of the things that even though we had prepared, we couldn't have possibly been prepared for the magnitude and the volume of those who were in need and calling at once.

And so the system, was really just inundated with calls, and you knew people were seeking direction, on, you know, should I leave my house?

Should I, you know, if I do, where do I go?

And those type things that we had just never experienced.

So really, two, which I'm sure we may talk about this, it became, after all was said and done, one of the things I'm most proud of now is that we took those lessons that we learned and actually put things into place, like, now we have an actual emergency management director.

That wasn't a position we had at the time at the City of Columbia.

So Harry Tinsley is now that person.

He was very involved then.

But, I was like, "Okay, I have to just, we have to just formalize this and we need to all the time, every day, you're putting things into place and practicing on those things and doing trainings all along, thinking ahead and being proactive.

For some of those things, we learned, like, you know, or even though you have to lean into the county and the state, but do we have shelters already stood up in place, even if we never have to use them?

So you can have clear information to tell individuals and citizens, families, because, the not knowing, I think, was, is very challenging for people at a time of a crisis or an emergency.

Gavin> So when you got into, I guess, the office, wherever they took you after you dropped your daughter off, I mean, what was it like?

I mean, were you just go, go, go for days straight?

Did you stay here?

Did you go back home?

I mean, what were some of the things that you maybe recall from that time?

Teresa> Right.

So we at that time, our emergency operations center was at Lady Street, which is one of our facilities that was in the basement of Lady Street.

Now we have a very state of the art.

It's another growing point that we are proud of since the flood, where we can have a real time crime center, all the cameras are up and everything.

But at that point in time, I mean, it was a definitely an efficient center, but we've grown it since then.

But yes, that is where I was taken.

But before I can even get there, though, you know, coming down 26 and seeing the elevation of the water, you know, over when you're going over the bridges, it was, I was like,, "Chief, are you good?"

I was like, literally relying on what Chief said.

So he was like, "Yes, ma'am, we're good.

"Just don't worry.

We're going to get there."

But he was like, "Well, I gotta make "a couple stops on the way."

And one of those stops and one of our firefighters at that time.

It became a story was they had kind of lost track of one of them, and it was down more in the Crossville area of town, like going down towards Garners Ferry.

And that whole intersection was overtaken with water.

So I got to watch, you know, our crews in rescue mode, you know, like, "You have to stay in the vehicle."

The chief was like, "I need to check on this real quick, "and then I'm going to get you to the E.O.C, "but just stay right here."

And so I was watching all this, and I'm like, okay, this is this is like, really serious.

This is so much more than what, you know, we would have ever imagined.

So I had those moments of seeing our folks in action.

I really think it grounded me even more because I knew I needed to be that leader for them to make sure they could do their jobs and continue to do them effectively, have the resources they needed, and things of that I, you know, just making sure they were fed and making sure that that we were communicating with our county, counterparts and some of those surrounding Midlands areas.

So when I got to the E.O.C., that's what we did.

Sheriff Lott was there.

Chief Holbrook was there, Chief Jenkins, and we just got around a table.

And I remember vividly us being on like, a landline with, I think the county administrator and some of their officials, and we just started literally talking about, okay, which are shelters open.

What can we do to help stand up another one?

Do we need to open our parks?

The answer was yes.

And we just started doing any and everything to try to get help to people, because at that point, it was still a massive amount of, citizens who were calling.

And so we had, you know, we were having to physically bring in 9-1-1 communicators cause they couldn't drive from where they were located to get downtown to get to the E.O.C.

to work.

And so, fortunately, again, our staff had planned for that to have stations set up in the E.O.C., so that we could bring in back up, for calls to be received.

But it was sort of like all hands on deck and no, I didn't get to go home.

I ended up staying there.

Gavin> You have dams failing.

You have Garner's Ferry under water.

You think things might be calming down.

Then all of a sudden there's a breach in the canal.

I mean, like, Teresa> Yeah.

Gavin> you had so many things going on.

It just seems like, Teresa> So many things going on.

Yes.

Gavin> It could have been so much worse.

It was worse.

It was bad, but it could been so much worse.

Teresa> It was catastrophic.

really.

Yeah.

But we, I think it really did still come down to, because even, like with Fort Jackson, you know, we were communicating with them as well that some of those were the dams closer to the fort that were breaching.

It was almost like a domino effect, to your point.

So it just it was a lot of communicative, you know, partnerships going on where everybody can step in with their infrastructure for the fort or the county or the state.

You know, it's just everyone kind of pulling together, with the breach occurring, you know, when would our water supply truly be compromised?

And particularly with the downtown corridor where we have level, our level one trauma center at the hospital and the universities and, you know, it was a major, major, concern.

So we began to talk to our state partners about how could they assist.

And that's when ultimately, you know, with the guard being able to, deploy a helicopter to help with the sandbags and just began to fill in the breach in the canal so that we would not get to that place where Columbia was without, proper drinking water.

But that was very unnerving.

And, you know, when we were first contemplating the prospects of that, I, I literally, my team always talks about this because I told them to take me up to, you know, kind of look at what we were really dealing with.

And I just, I felt physically sick, like, I just the thought of that happening in our community and, you know, that was like the last thing we wanted to hold on to that we are going to, and we did it.

It was hard, as heck, to have boil water advisories and all that, but we never, we never lost the drinking water source.

Again, learning experience that we needed to build in more contingencies going forward.

And that until just recently had that with the federal government shut down, where we just for the most part, recently got our final, you know, our allocations of the funding to rebuild the canal but build it back better.

And, that's really instrumental for even though it had taken ten years and a lot of, assistance by, you know, our delegation, you know, Congressman Clyburn and, others, they have been very, you know, instrumental.

Senator Graham, and we're very thankful for them staying on it.

But it just shows that the federal process to get things done, because you have all these regulatory agencies when it's this infrastructure system like a water, drinking water source.

You have F.E.M.A and F.E.R.C and, you know, E.P.A.

You have to go through all the different acronyms to get to where you need to be.

Gavin> And then kind of wrapping up too, that was ten years ago.

Last year was Helene.

I was at your press conference when everyone was freaking out, in a sense that this was going to happen again.

I mean, obviously fresh fears and not, unrealized fears, too.

Teresa> Sure.

Gavin> So, kind of walk through, you know, why those fears should be put to rest when we see a big storm coming through.

Kind of elaborate a little bit, what we just talked about, that funding coming back.

Teresa> Right.

So... we, you know, I never hate to, to come across like we were even chastising the public, at all, during Helene, because we actually were anticipating that people would have those same fears.

Anybody would.

It's, it's, it's a trigger, you know, from when you've experienced something like what we all went through in 2015.

At the same time, we always want to make sure people are getting accurate information and not, you know, creating a rush to judgment or a stir.

That could then cause other issues.

So, it, you know, fast forward to ten years now and social media platforms were so much more, you know, available and utilized.

And so we've tried to really stand up our ways we communicate.

And so when that was happening with Helene and individuals were concerned, we started putting out the information about these are the things that we've done since 2015.

These are some of the things that are still underway and pending with the funding that we're awaiting and that, even with that, when we get to the final, final, final, version of, our redundancy with the canal being rebuilt and built back, even better.

Even before we get to that, we've done these things in the meantime.

So your, your water source is not at risk.

It will look scary when you get this amount of rain coming down in a very short period of time, but rest assured, we would never put the public, at risk of anything without letting you know ahead of time.

So we know, even with Helene.

And again, Clint and those can give you the numbers, but we never hit that threshold.

It was nothing like the 2015 flood.

It just probably felt like it because it was a lot of rain and it battered in, as well.

Gavin> At the end of all this, I mean, the city is more resilient.

Teresa> We're more resilient.

We're more resilient.

And we have, made, you know, staffing changes and infrastructure changes that, a limit should eliminate the fear that the public experienced at that point in time.

Yeah, we've learned a lot from that event.

Gavin> Rob Godfrey was serving as Governor Nikki Haley's deputy chief of staff for communications at the time of the flood, which came during a tumultuous year for our state and the first year of Haley's second term.

I spoke with him about the disaster, and he started off by recalling Haley's message of warning before the disaster hit.

>> They understand the risk of, of, of a, of a hurricane coming from the ocean, you know, and up the coast and the, you know, the need to evacuate.

But it's harder to, to get people to understand, "Hey, this is a, this, "this could be an unprecedented rain event."

"Get ready."

And I remember waking up that morning, of the, of the, hearing the rain.

I mean, it awoke our dogs and thinking, what in the world could be going on?

Because I just looked out the window and saw water rushing down, downhill down the street.

And I thought, you know, "Holy smokes, this is "this is as bad as, as people forecasted."

And that's actually a real credit to the folks who work out at the, at the Emergency Response Center, including Kim Stenson and including, his team and including, you know, the folks at the National Weather Service who I think predicted this thing, who did so well and allowed people to the extent that they would, to brace for it, which I always think ultimately saves, saves lives.

And so preparing for it was something that the governor did not take lightly when she saw what was coming.

And it got her ready.

and focused and in the posture to do everything she needed to do once we got to the recovery mode.

Gavin> And you were there, I mean, you guys were operating out of the Emergency Management Division, the Emergency Operations Center, for so long.

You flew around in Blackhawk helicopters surveying that damage.

For you personally, for her, what was it like to see that aerial view of what was happening to our state at that time?

Rob> Sure.

I think it was, as, as breathtaking as it was heartbreaking to see the kind of damage that was inflicted on the people of the state.

This was already a year that emotionally had taken its toll on South Carolina.

That summer, we'd seen things like the shooting of Walter Scott, the shooting at Mother Emanuel Church.

I mean, that literally, you know, just weeks before, months before.

And, you know, to follow that up with a natural disaster, the likes of which, you know, no one had ever seen or likely will ever see, you know, in this lifetime, was, was, was, was jolting.

You know, not only did we see it when we went to the far throes of the state or down to the coast, as you're customary to seeing, as it's customary to seeing, when you tour Hurricane damage.

But it was, you know, flooding that that ravaged the Midlands and that you could see close to home.

So I think that it, like I said, it was heartbreaking.

I think that it, instilled resolve in the governor, to begin doing everything she can to get people what they need and to start helping the state recover from this, because it had an economic impact.

It had, you know, it had an impact on the lives that it took.

And it had an impact on the way people lived and the houses that were swept away.

I mean, it was, it was breathtaking in its depth and breadth and its devastation.

Gavin> And it seems like it was always, it didn't stop, you know, the rain was going for so long.

Then you had dams breaking and then you had the water supply being under threat here in Columbia.

Then you had stuff happening in the Pee Dee with you know, dams breaking there too, things being swept away, here in Columbia, areas that you wouldn't think would flood, were under water.

It just seemed like it was nonstop.

You were at the E.O.C.

for two weeks straight.

I mean, what were those days, like, having to catch basically falling knives, essentially?

Rob> Yes.

The days were very long and they were grueling, as they are during natural disasters at the Emergency Operations Center.

This was particularly difficult and particularly hard because, as you said, it was so many different, you know, disasters that followed the initial disaster.

And there are two I think, groups that I think deserve real credit for how they helped respond and helped the governor respond.

First is her cabinet, obviously.

Each of each of those cabinet members, including, people like Transportation Secretary Christy Hall, whose star shone through, they deserve such great credit for the way they kept the governor informed, for the way they kept the governor, ready to respond for the ways that they in an innovative and adaptive and in a, you know, in, in a quick way responded to this and I think also we have to give credit to, well, and obviously all of the folks at the Emergency Operations Center who always do an extraordinary job under these circumstances, and that includes Kim Stenson.

But I think federal partners were important to, were important to, to the recovery effort too.

There's just so much partisan rancoring these days, that we have to remember, this was, you know, a governor who was working with a president of the opposite party, you know, cabinet members and emergency management officials who were appointed by a president of another party.

And people cooperated because they understood the stakes.

And the stakes were people's lives, people's livelihoods and where they lived.

And so, that was one of the things I took away from the thousand year flood that when government gets together and works together with a common goal of doing what's right by the people, it's, it's a great thing.

It's a great thing.

It's a core function of government.

And we should not lose sight of ultimately what the great what the thousand year flood taught us, when we have all of the dysfunction going on around us.

Gavin> You can find this report as well SCETV's special "Weathering the Flood" on youtube.com / South Carolina ETV, For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina.

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