ORANGEBURG COUNTY, S.C. — Orangeburg County is still recovering from the aftermath of last week's historic flooding, which has left many roads impassable. Five days later, emergency services reports that 76 major roads remain closed.
Orangeburg County Director of Emergency Services Billy Staley says recovery might take some time.
“We have some roads that are going to be months to be repaired, and we have some roads that are going to be a week or two," Staley said.
Jordan Dempsey is the assistant chief at the Edisto Fire Department in Cope. He says that several key routes in the district have been severely damaged, making it difficult for them to access parts of their fire district.
"Today, we're just surveying the area that was damaged during the rain, making sure we have access to all of our fire response areas, which alternate routes were having to take due to the washouts in the roads so that we are not in the immediate action of trying to get to someone to either rescue them, extinguish a house fire or get to a medical call or any other vehicle accident so that we have a better route to get there as quickly as possible,” said Dempsey.
The South Carolina Department of Transportation does not have a timeline as yet on when repairs will be completed but in a statement to News19, SCDOT said, “SCDOT is expediting these repairs. Crews have been working since last week and will continue to work until we get those roads repaired and reopened. We appreciate the public’s patience as we continue to work to make repairs.”
Staley is urging residents to avoid driving around barricades and roadblocks.
"Please do not move the barricades, the cones, or the barrels and drive around them. We're still in the process of evaluating and repairing roads, and that's super critical," said Staley. "This morning, an 18-wheeler had tried to drive around a barricade and got stuck."
Orangeburg County Office of Emergency Services is asking residents who sustained damage to their properties or businesses due to the flooding to report their losses for possible assistance through FEMA.