When William Marshall woke up Sunday morning in Cayce’s Riverland Park neighborhood, he checked how high the Congaree River, which flows through the neighborhood, was rising, knowing that water flowing from the Upstate and western North America after Hurricane Helene Carolina flowing down would cause this. to get up.
“It wasn’t until overnight that I realized how far the water had come and I knew this was going to be a little different,” he said.
Marshall is executive chef at the beloved Cayce hole-in-the-wall The Kingsman, where he worked for 22 years. He grew up in low-lying Riverland Park, lived there for 16 years during his youth, and returned about four years ago. He and many of the other residents there, whom he described as “lifers,” know the neighborhood is one of the first areas to flood when the river rises.
So Marshall took action.
“I went and dusted off my kayak, took out my canoe and all that stuff, and put it in the front yard,” he said.
The Congaree River crested Monday at about 30 feet, and just like in 2015, when the river crested nearly five feet, Riverland Park flooded. On Tuesday evening, the city estimated the number of flooded homes at fewer than twelve. No injuries have been reported.
Marshall was there to help. He conducted home inspections for landlords and was present when the city rescued a family from a home with waist-deep water. And he brought people food and other necessities, rode from his home to higher ground and paddled to those who were trapped.
For a neighbor, that included a 12-pack of Busch Light.
“His meemaw has been there since the 1970s, I think, and he stays with her,” Marshall said. “I saw one of his messages, like, ‘This water is hitting me, I didn’t think it would be this bad. I’m alone here. I need a beer, dammit.” I thought, ‘What kind of beer? I’m working on it. ”
“Regardless of beer, diapers or whatever it was,” he added, “I just wanted to put my foot forward and help.”
Time to clean up
The Congaree has been retreating since Monday afternoon and emerged from flood stage late Tuesday afternoon. But the cleanup in Cayce will continue for a while.
The nearby Thomas Newman dock was completely submerged, as were all the river walks in Cayce and West Columbia. Along Old State Road toward Riverland Park, which connects to the landing site and riverwalk and the Timmerman Trail, water has torn up sections of asphalt, meaning it will likely be closed for some time.
“Our Parks Department will be very busy,” said Jim Crosland, Cayce’s interim city manager. “Usually only certain parts of the river promenade are flooded, usually lasting two to three days. I think we’ll be on the road for at least a week and a half, two weeks, trying to get all the mud and debris out of there.”
“Our other concern is checking all those homes where water got into the crawl spaces to make sure there’s no mold, things like that,” he added.
West Columbia hasn’t seen residential impacts like Cayce’s, but the country is also considering an arduous process to get the riverwalk back up and running.
The Rhythm on the River concert series, which uses the amphitheater attached to the riverwalk near the Gervais Street Bridge, has postponed its first event for the fall, scheduled for Friday, instead holding back-to-back concerts next Friday and Saturday to ensure there is time to prepare the site.
Cayce wants to boost morale Saturday by continuing with the annual Fall Fest at Granby Gardens Park.
“We’ve added a good donation so we can help anyone who needs it,” Cayce Mayor Elise Partin said. “But we felt it was important to come together as a community.”
It could have been worse
Cayce initiated a voluntary evacuation on Sunday, going door to door to warn Riverland Park residents that the river was rising.
City officials were waiting to see whether Lake Murray would need to open an additional overflow gate after the one opened Friday, which would allow more water to flow into the Saluda River, which connects with the Broad River in Columbia to form the Congaree. That didn’t happen, but Congaree Riverkeeper Bill Stanger described it as a “tight call.”
“I started conversations two days before the hurricane,” Partin said of the city’s communications with Dominion Energy, which operates the Lake Murray Dam. “Because that’s how you have to look at it: if there’s something that needs to be released, it needs to be released before the storm comes. Luckily we know they have gone up, but not by much, and our biggest problem came from the Broad.”
The water in Riverland Park was high enough to strand some people in their homes, and the city conducted several rescues, using both boats and a high-water truck.
Now that the water has cleared from the neighborhood, Marshall says residents are coming together, as they always do, to help each other get back to normal.
“There are a lot of people who came by to use my kayak to check on their homes, those who were evacuated,” he said. “A few neighbors in the back street came by my house and exchanged numbers so I could let them know if anything changes, if they can go back home. It’s just a very strong bond.”
