COLUMBIA, S.C. — Flooding across Richland County has impacted dozens of residents. Over on Killian Circle in the northeast part of the county, neighbors are struggling to get to their homes due to high water levels in the road.
“We can't be safe when our roads are just constantly being band aid and not being fully repaired correctly,” Chery Young said.
Young lives in the Killian Circle area, she says she’s having to look for hotels to stay in after high water levels made the roads difficult to cross, something that’s not uncommon in this neighborhood.
"We realized we could not get through again, so we had to go on I-77, park on 77, walk down the embankment to get to our house and get some belongings and our dog so that we can find a safe place to stay tonight,” Young said.
Richland County has seen one to two inches of rain. The southern parts of the Midlands have seen up to eight as Hurricane Helene makes her way through the palmetto state.
“They came out and fixed the road. As you can see, it's not fixed and the road may be even damaged again, there was a huge hole right there and it's just not safe for us to travel on,” Young said.
Neighbors say their biggest concern is the lack of access in case of an emergency.
“We have a lot of older people who live down on that road and one just had a kidneys transplant, and he had to walk through here to get home to his wife. We're just really concerned about the elderly and making sure that they're safe. If they were to need an ambulance, the ambulance would not be able to get through,” David Strother, another resident, said.
Residents say SCDOT has been out to repair the road several times, but every time there’s heavy rain fall, their roads are underwater.
“I just want to make sure everybody's safe. That's a big issue around here, just keeping everybody safe, and with the road being flooded it's not safe at all. I just want this fixed, we want this fix, the community wants this fixed, Richland County wants this fixed. Just fix it please,” Strother said.
