Historic Flooding continues to hit South Carolina

“I’ve never seen anything like this in Columbia”, Wukela, who has lived in the city since 2006, said.

A woman walks down a flooded sidewalk toward an open convenience store in Charleston, S.C., Sunday, October 4, 2015.

The South Carolina coast is getting hammered with historic rains along with an unusual lunar high tide causing flooding all over the state.

Meanwhile, according to local authorities, at least 30,000 people in Dorchester and Charleston, South Carolina, were now without power.

Residents were being rescued by law enforcement, fire rescue and emergency officials as well as other residents, Berry said.

The downpours and “catastrophic” flooding were expected to persist not only in South Carolina, but along the east coast through the night Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.

On Saturday, about 11½ inches of rain had fallen in the city, the weather service said. President Obama on Saturday declared a state of emergency in worst-hit South Carolina. “This is an extremely unsafe situation in those areas”.

Swift-water rescue teams have been dispatched all over the state to help pluck stranded residents out of flooding. He says law enforcement officers “will stop you and make you go home or somewhere else”. Georgetown, a city of 9,000 people, was mostly under water, and the four major highways leading into it were closed.

In Columbia, fire officials said several dams had breached.

Three people died on Friday and Saturday in traffic incidents in South Carolina, and a auto passenger died in North Carolina on Thursday when a tree fell on Interstate 95, officials said.

The wild weather was blamed for at least four deaths in the Carolinas since Thursday.

Gorrin’s aunt is heading with him to his house, where it has not flooded, but the drive home was tricky. “Turn around, don’t drown”, it said.

Gov. Nikki Haley is continuing to ask South Carolina residents to stay off the roads as flood waters continue to plague large portions of the Midlands and the Lowcountry. He said his aunt, Wanda Laboy, waited several hours after calling 911, so family came to help.

“We’ll do our part, but this is really about the citizens of South Carolina“, Haley said.

Rawlings LaMotte, 38, a residential real estate broker, said an area in front of his gated subdivision in eastern Columbia was filled with up with 5 feet of water.

Acting DOT Secretary Christy Hall says she can’t release a lot of information about the missing worker because the search is ongoing.

“It’s the worst it’s been since [Hurricane] Hugo in 1989”, said Remley Campbell, 69, a financial adviser from Charleston. In addition to coastal flood warnings, there were high wind and wave advisories, with waves at Ocean City expected to be between eight and 11 feet through early Monday. And it comes from two sources.

Finlay is also a Republican whose district includes areas near Gills Creek, where a Richland County weather station recorded 18.39 inches of rain.

Joaquin weakened to Category 3 strength early Sunday and was predicted to weaken further over the following 48 hours.

The two separate storms will result in a one-two water punch. At the same time, they’re making the system now parked there more risky.

“It looks like a raging river”, LaMotte said.

A rainstorm pounded the East Coast, bringing South Carolina to a standstill. The Northeast could see two inches. “This is going to be the heaviest rain we have ever seen”.

Both Carolinas, New Jersey, and Virginia declared states of emergency. The expenses for this deployment are being paid by South Carolina. CNN’s Kevin Conlon wrote from Atlanta.