Up To 9 Killed In ‘Thousand-Year Storm’ In South Carolina

Nine people died over the weekend as torrential rains wreaked havoc on South Carolina and neighboring states. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and and others are calling the disaster a "1,000 year storm." President Obama declared a state of emergency. "We haven't seen this level of rain in the lowcountry in 1,000 years. That's how big this is. That's what South Carolina is dealing with right now," Haley said during a press conference on Sunday. The South Carolina Lowcountry is the area of the state that runs along its coast and encompasses Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper counties. As of 2011, around 20% of this area — with the exception of Beaufort County — lived in poverty. The rains are subsiding. In some areas, they left over 25 inches of water on the ground. But South Carolina warns that the emergency is not over. Monday morning, Governor Haley re-tweeted about "worsening conditions" in the lowcountry." "Please stay home, stay safe," the South Carolina Emergency Management Division (SCEMD) urged.

Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina's two largest cities, collectively home to over 250,000 people, were also some of the areas the storm hit hardest. According to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers, the storm resulted from insane amounts of moisture. "It was a garden hose that just kept pouring ashore in one spot, and that spot was South Carolina," he said. The hose Myers described looked something like the following:

Hundreds of emergency response workers, including 600 members of the National Guard, are on the scene. 40,000 people are without water. Governor Haley said that Walmart donated 80,000 bottles of water in response. Between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Sunday, the SCEMD reported 315 collisions, 239 calls for assistance, 273 reports of fallen trees and 318 of flooded roads. The state has employed 30,000 sandbags to combat the flooding. Organizations like the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and the South Carolina Baptist Convention are seeking volunteers and donations to help provide relief.