Georgetown Front Street business owners, residents cleaning up after flood

If it isn’t a fire, it’s a flood.

The city of Georgetown has seen a lot of hardships the past two years, but that hasn’t given residents and business owners a reason to lose hope. Much of Georgetown County was under water Sunday from heavy rain and high tides, and officials blocked off access to the city from Highway 17 and U.S. 701.

But the sun came out Monday morning and many of the city’s streets dried out as the rain let up. Front Street business owners gathered in front of their stores early Monday to survey the damage caused by the extreme flooding – much like they did in September 2013, after an enormous fire destroyed nine businesses on Georgetown’s historic waterfront.

“It’s just hit after hit after hit,” said Ginger Gray, owner of children’s clothing store Doodlebugs. “It’s just the storm that keeps on coming.”

Gray relocated to the 700 block of Front Street after the 2013 fire destroyed her store. She’s spent the last three days pumping out over 3,000 gallons of floodwater from her boutique.

“It’s just so saturated because there’s nowhere for the water to go,” she said.

Several family members and friends were on hand Monday to help Gray dry out her store, which had about 3 inches of standing water overnight. Gray said she never wants to deal with another major disaster again.

“Hopefully this will be the last hit we’re going to take,” Gray said.

Another group of friends were gathered up the street to help clean out Bienvenue Home, which also flooded over the past few days. Chip Daniels, who owns the building that houses the home decor store, said rain is the No. 1 problem with buildings on Front Street.

High tides or rising rivers contribute to the flooding, but the main water damage is from the heavy rain and strong winds pushing against the buildings, Daniels said. Luckily, Bienvenue Home had a whole slew of people jumping in to remove all the wet products and mop the floors.

“We’ve got a wonderful community,” said store owner Geraldine Jaroe. “I don’t know what we’d do without them.”

Residents were also dealing with the effects of flooding on their historic houses – especially those with property on Front Street. Jean Rothrock, who owns a 110-year-old home near Cannon Street, was pumping water out of her basement Monday after spreading the wet contents on the front lawn.

Rothrock said she filled up the backyard with soggy stuff from the basement and needed somewhere else to rinse off her extra furniture, holiday decorations and storage.

“We’re having a yard sale,” she joked.

The basement flooded Sunday morning but Rothrock couldn’t pump out the water until the rain stopped and the tide went down, she said. The house has a drainage system that works, but the pumps were overwhelmed by the floodwaters, she said.

Part of the problem was the city’s own drainage system; much of the water from the streets was pumped back into residents’ yards, which worsened the flooding for those residents, Rothrock said.

“I’d like to encourage Georgetown to take a look at their drainage system because a lot of this was caused by problems with their system,” she said. “And it could have been relatively easily fixed.”

Still, Rothrock was relieved the flooding wasn’t any worse. The city of Georgetown has dealt with a lot of problems over the years, but it’s not anything the residents can’t handle, she said.

“Georgetown will come back – it always does,” Daniels said. “We’ve got strong people here.”

This story was originally published October 5, 2015 at 3:21 PM with the headline "Georgetown Front Street business owners, residents cleaning up after flood."