‘Nature is going to take it back’: Some Horry residents pack up after constant flooding

John Russell, 68, was still in the Air Force when he became one of the original residents of Cottonwood Drive in the Rosewood community. He remembers when his street had just a few houses, filled mostly with the men and women stationed at the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base just down Socastee Boulevard.

When he bought the home in 1984, he wasn’t in a flood zone. According to the current FEMA flood zones, he still isn’t. But Russell’s home has now flooded in 2016 and 2018. Hurricane Florence flooding cost him everything.

As temperatures reached into the 30s this week, Russell and his longtime neighbor Jan Joyner were talking outside their homes along Cottonwood Drive as they often had in the past. Russell was cleaning up glass from his yard, leftovers of the possessions he lost. Joyner was standing outside while her husband removed light fixtures inside.

After the first flood, they both decided to stay. Joyner took out a loan to help restore her house, which she said she still owes on despite her home getting flooded for a second time. She and her husband managed to save what they could before Florence hit, but they still lost appliances, flooring and other improvements made in 2016.

“I wasn’t planning for another flood, so we fixed it up nicely,” Joyner said. “I can’t keep going into debt, and I really don’t think this is the last flood.”

Four months after the water receded, Russell, one of Rosewood’s oldest residents, has decided to move north to be with family. Joyner also is looking to leave the home she has lived in for decades.

Both Russell and Joyner believe Florence will not be the last time the neighborhood floods.

Rosewood underwater

At its worst following Hurricane Florence, floodwaters nearly reached the roofs of some Rosewood homes.

Parts of Horry County experienced 20 inches of rain. Farther north, Wilmington saw upward of 25 inches of rain. In the days immediately following the storm, local river levels spiked, but it took two weeks for the rivers to reach their record-breaking depths, flooding over 2,000 homes across the county.

Rosewood residents quickly became one of the most commonly known victims of the flood, despite the neighborhood not being near either of the major rivers. Dozens of groups and volunteers are continuing to help residents move past the flood. Joyner was thankful for their assistance.

But it’s sad for Joyner to see her neighborhood suffering for a second time.

Before 2016, Russell said it was a flood-free, family friendly neighborhood with deep ties to the community. Joyner remembered coffee meeting groups and watching her kids grow up inside the house that’s now gutted following the flood. In many ways that sense of community still exists, Russell said, as some residents are determined to rebuild.

“I lived here for 33 years, no floods,” Russell said. “The community is slowly getting back together.”

New flood maps from FEMA would put Rosewood in a flood zone, which will require flood insurance to be purchased when someone buys a home in the neighborhood. The proposed maps are why Joyner decided to leave, too much of Horry County is close to a flood zone, she said.

“I was looking for a house in Horry County, but I kept looking at the flood map and thinking ‘I’m not a spring chicken, I don’t want to experience this again, twice is good enough,’” she said.

Horry County Stormwater Director Tom Garigen said the flooding in Socastee was caused by water from the Waccamaw River having nowhere to go, so it pushed north along the Intracoastal Waterway, which borders Rosewood. Most of the rain fell in North Carolina, but fed into the Waccamaw and Little Pee Dee watershed flows from Virginia, through Horry County to the ocean. The Waccamaw River starts where the rain fell the hardest.

While the housing market in Horry County took a hit in September and the beginning of October, the market quickly recovered, according to data from The Coastal Carolina Association of Realtors. One expert, Professor Matt Kahn, said he expects a home that didn’t flood in Florence could become a major selling point to property buyers.

‘I don’t think it’s over.’

With the exemption of a few homes on stilts, many of the historic, working-class homes in Rosewood took in several feet of standing water.

The water levels in Horry County are still high. The Waccamaw River at Conway is slowly going down, but it is still about four feet higher than where it was before Florence. While it’s no longer in a flood stage, the river briefly returned to minor flood territory in December.

“The swamp is more than a swamp, it’s full of water,” Joyner said. “I don’t think its over.”

Joyner is sad to be leaving the neighborhood, but it’s time. She said her kids were raised in the house and lived there while they attended college at Coastal Carolina University.

Joyner bought a new house out of the area. She wants to sell her home but worries about how ethical it will be to sell a house she thinks will flood again. Russell thinks people will be willing to take the risk or be willing to make flood-proof improvements in order to be in such a great location. After all, his home is still within walking distance to the Waccamaw.

“People will still want to live here. It’s a good area to stay, to live,” he said. “I think it’s my time to go, to move on.”

Russell lost everything. He evacuated for Hurricane Florence, and due to roads closings and standstill traffic following the storm, he was unable to get back to his home before the water quickly started to rise. He said the Air Force taught him to keep moving and do what needs to be done. He is going to get his home ready to sell in the spring and then head to Ohio.

His home was built on swamp land, he said, just like so many others in Horry County. Water would normally fill up the swamps and drain out, but now homes are sitting on those areas. For Russell, the water level is rising due to global warming, which is creating a clear picture of the future for him.

“Nature is going to take it back, that’s basically what happened,” he said. “It’s going to flood again, they say it’s not, but it’s going to flood again. It’s just a matter of when.”

This story was originally published February 1, 2019 at 11:44 AM.