Volunteers to rebuild Conway home destroyed by October flood

A Conway family that lost their home during October’s historic statewide flood will get a new one in February thanks to a local mission group and a grant from the One SC Flood Relief Fund.

Built in 1919, the house where 51-year-old S.C. DOT trade specialist Archie Simmons lived with his disabled mother and sister was razed recently to make room for new construction.

“We lost our home,” Simmons said, “and everything in it.”

He said he had returned on clear roads from a 12-hour workday. He had been napping for about an hour when his mother started shaking him to get up. He said the floodwaters rose so quickly the family had to hurry to get out. Floodwaters had already covered the yard and the road.

Four feet of water saturated the house for more than two weeks during the record storm that killed 17 people and prompted Gov. Nikki Haley to declare a state of emergency. Irreparable damage left the Simmons family homeless.

The family’s dire situation came to the attention of Todd Wood, resort missionary with IMPACT Ministries, who worked to obtain $25,000 from the flood fund set up under the umbrella of the Central Carolina Community Foundation. The money is being used to assist three Horry County families who suffered flood damage, he said. Much of the funding, along with community donations of time and materials and $14,000 from FEMA, is designated to rebuild the Simmons home.

Wood said IMPACT Ministries worked with Horry County Emergency Management and VOAD (Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster) to provide disaster response to help families whose homes were damaged by water and mud. From October through November, 174 Horry County homes were “mudded out” and repaired by volunteer laborers that included Mennonite crews from out of state.

The three most damaged homes, which includes the Simmons home plus a house off Highway 90 and one in Forest Brook, needed additional help. With the aid of the flood relief fund two of them have been repaired. The Simmons home, however, was too damaged to save, Wood said.

“We took a team in to mud the house out, but there was just nothing left to save,” Wood said. “With two of the three family members disabled, I knew we had to step in and help them get a new home.”

Wood said the home will be rebuilt from the ground up using volunteer labor. Greg McFarland of PMH Architects donated his time to the mission project preparing house plans reworked from a previous IMPACT Ministries build in Myrtle Beach. The plans are for a 1,000-square-foot home to be raised 9 feet off the ground due to its proximity to the lake.

“Raising the house high enough to be safe from future flooding posed a problem for Archie’s disabled mom and sister,” Wood said. To address that problem, Seaside Elevators of Little River has stepped in to install an elevator.

Other donors include Ashleigh Weatherly of Kyzer & Timmerman Structural Engineers who donated structural plans and Lowe’s, which has donated cabinets. Through a partnership with Catholic Charities, all new furniture will be provided through the organization’s “House in a Box” program.

While the American Red Cross stepped in to help the family with some immediate needs after the flooding, the Salvation Army has provided $1,500 to be used for the purchase of building materials, Wood said.

“We’ll have tons of people like this donating everything from port-a-johns to plumbing to electrical,” Wood said.

A man from North Carolina brought his bobcat down recently to help tear down what was left of the house. Simmons said the house was gutted in four hours and he took some time off work to help out by burning the debris.

Everything is on hold until site work — which includes bringing in loads of dirt to level the ground — can be completed. Wood anticipates the build will begin the third or fourth week of February and will take two weeks. He already has a group of college students scheduled the last week of February to help with painting, landscaping and the move in, but other volunteers are needed.

Simmons said his family is grateful for the help and feels especially blessed to have Wood and IMPACT Ministries looking out for them.

“The good Lord always looks out for his children and I believe he sent us Todd to be our guardian angel,” Simmons said.

While he looks forward to returning to the land his family has called home for decades, he said the loss of the house was especially devastating because his father died suddenly of a heart problem only 17 months ago. One of the few items the family recovered from the water soaked home was a severely damaged and irreplaceable family photo with his dad partially visible.

To donate to the project or to volunteer, contact Wood at (843) 254-7777 or email todd@impactmb.org

This story was originally published January 30, 2016 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Volunteers to rebuild Conway home destroyed by October flood."