Waccamaw River inches towards historical record

Paul and Erica Hadden are having a streak of bad luck.

Forced out of their Carolina Forest home just weeks ago after a fire, they rented a waterfront home here complete with a swimming pool and boat ramp leading to the Waccamaw River.

Then Hurricane Matthew struck, smacking this inland area with winds that ripped trees from the roots and downed power lines, leaving most of the city in the dark for days.

The good news is that the Haddens have electricity.

The bad news is that their house is completely surrounded by the river that laps at the stilts underneath.

The Waccamaw has claimed the pool, the street and the homes of residents all along the sprawling waterway in Horry County.

The couple pointed to a water mark at the base of the house that snaked around the dwelling, indicating where Hurricane Floyd left his final mark in 1999.

By Saturday afternoon, the Waccamaw was just inches away from topping it.

National Weather Service forecasters now predict the river will surpass Floyd’s impact and hit 17.5 feet on Sunday, just three inches shy of the 1928 record of 17.8 feet.

“It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?” asked Erica Hadden, as she and her husband stood on the deck overlooking the Pitch Landing community that is now part of the river basin.

The couple evacuated the area earlier this week after spending one night in the house as the water rapidly rose.

They were awakened in the middle of the night to the smell of gasoline after the river pushed a canister of the flammable liquid into their carport underneath the house. It took fire department personnel nearly two hours to make their way through the flood to respond, and that’s when the couple changed their mind about riding out the flood.

“We would be helpless out here if something went wrong,” Paul Hadden said.

Hurricane Matthew has brought new meaning to living the quiet river life along the Waccamaw.

Several residents along Waccamaw Drive have decided to ride out the flood in homes that are raised or on stilts – their presence made known by humming generators or the echo of conversations that float from decks less than a foot above the water’s surface.

Church chimes wafted over the Conway Marina, where boats are tied down to floating docks that stand out as an oasis in the swirling water.

Farther down river, many locals who evacuated took advantage of the sunny, fall day to check on their property by boat, the sound of crickets replaced by the warning chirps that water pumps had stopped working.

The magnificence of Mother Nature whispered in the whirlpools that tugged at Spanish moss draping from tilted Cyprus trees that lined the picturesque river, and in the black water that swirled around half-submerged American flags, now serving as signals of boat landings hidden below.

The swift current was a challenge for boaters to make their way upriver without creating a wake and causing even more damage to flooded homes.

The water rushed so strongly at some bends, boats appeared to stand still.

James Lowrimore was on the Waccamaw with his daughter to check on their vessel, the “Dixie Queen” – an 85-foot paddleboat that has sunk twice already, including a time during last year’s flood that until this week was the second-highest on record.

The boat was chained to a Cyprus tree that is no longer standing, the trunk ripped from the ground and the boat somewhere below the murky water, Lowrimore said.

But like other river dwellers, Lowrimore is used to the ebb and flow, the destruction that the Waccamaw can sometimes inflict, and his sense of humor is intact.

“I’ll get her back up when the water goes down,” Lowrimore vowed. “I think I’ll rename her the ‘Swamp Witch,’ since this is the third time she’s gone down.”

This story was originally published October 15, 2016 at 6:48 PM with the headline "Waccamaw River inches towards historical record."