When I first got down to the park (which was closed) on Tuesday morning, October 6, the foot bridge at South Cedar Creek landing was still completely submerged. The gage at Cedar Creek became disabled at 13 feet, and I suspect water levels peaked at least three or four feet above that. By the time the water got down to the park, it reached nearly 20 feet. The Congaree River crested late Sunday afternoon, October 4, at nearly 32 feet, a record not seen since the 1930s. These latter figures represent more than 40% of the average annual rainfall totals for central South Carolina! Figures were thrown about in the media as to the rarity of the storm: a hundred year, five hundred year, or even a thousand-year event!
Even worse, rainfall event totals were significantly higher east of the airport: the Gills Creek area (a tributary of the Congaree River), where several lake dams broke, was apparently at ground zero and volunteer weather observers reported 21.49 inches, while Leesburg and Eastover in eastern Richland County reported more than 18 inches each. The deluge also broke the two-day rainfall total: 10.28 inches for October 3-4, compared to the previous two-day record of 7.69 inches, set in 1949. The Columbia metropolitan airport recorded its greatest one-day rainfall ever on October 4th: 6.71 inches compared to the old record, established in 1959, of 5.79 inches. A rare combination of events created a “perfect storm” of record rainfall: a stalled coastal cold front, along with strategically placed low and high pressure fronts, resulted in a powerful “conveyer belt” of continuous moisture pumped in from offshore Hurricane Joaquin. The South Carolina Midlands has suffered flooding of Biblical proportions, a catastrophe the likes of which has never been experienced in modern memory.
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