‘A somber silence’: Flooding has become routine for Socastee’s Rosewood community
Rosewood resident James Moore looked out at what is becoming a familiar sight in his Socastee neighborhood.
On Tuesday, water from the Intracoastal Waterway reached his back yard and flooded parts of Rosewood Drive. A retention pond in the middle of the neighborhood was overflowing its banks, leaving water in the lawns of homes behind Moore’s street.
“Welcome to the real world. Here’s the Intracoastal Waterway,” Moore said, looking out over his flooded back yard and onto a silent waterway.
Tuesday’s flooding is the result of recent rain in North Carolina making its way down toward Georgetown flowing toward the ocean. The Intracoastal Waterway was measured at 16 feet Tuesday morning, up from 14 feet last Friday. The National Weather Service reported the Intracoastal Waterway should recede slowly Wednesday.
Elsewhere in Horry County, the Waccamaw and Little Pee Dee rivers entered flood stages, closing roads and causing concerns among residents. Water is starting to recede along these rivers, and the NWS predicted rains in the forecast shouldn’t have a major impact.
The flood levels this week are nowhere near comparable to the devastation of Hurricane Florence in 2018 that gutted homes across the region. But for Moore and his neighbors, many of whom have lived in Rosewood for decades, flooding has become a new normal over the last decade.
They have a pre-flood routine: work together to remove anything not bolted down out of the bottom floor, wait for the water to leave, rebuild. But the emotional, financial and physical toll is becoming too much.
Moore’s neighbor, Oscar Leroy, remembers when his house held massive neighborhood parties, but now he said preparing for disaster consumes so much of his time while back home in between traveling abroad for business.
“We used to have fun but now it’s just repair, repair, repair. I’m getting tired,” Leroy said while his employees moved his belongings to a storage warehouse away from the water.
Resident Deborah Furlong walked out of her home to talk with Leroy and Moore before heading to work. She asked how concerned she should be and if the water was expected to get higher.
Moore said he believed it would start going down soon, but cautioned that another flood was inevitable.
Leroy and Moore want out of the neighborhood. Leroy is moving to Mexico. Moore doesn’t know where he is going but he wants out.
Furlong, another decades-long resident of Rosewood, said she can’t afford to leave and doesn’t know what to do other than just prepare for the next flood.
Both she and Moore said they’ve learned that government help isn’t likely to come quick, despite Rosewood being a stop for previous governors and politicians following major hurricanes during the summer.
But in February, a time none of them were expecting a flood, the neighborhood was silent other than the sound of the neighbors trying to help each other out.
Flood preparedness is a community effort for Rosewood residents.
“You see a somber silence but not a panic,” Moore said. “The neighborhood works better together than the government.”
