From 12 am Monday to about noon, we had a rain storm that dropped 13.08” of rain in our backyard. It was not predicted to produce this much. At one point, my rain gauge said it was coming down at a rate of 3.31” per hour! They started the day with a two hour delay for kids at school but then decided to cancel school (thankfully before the kids arrived). Some teachers and staff went to work and some ended up being stuck overnight. I had the day off of work because I had company, but the staff that was there couldn’t get home and had to spend the night. Some of the OR staff left to try to get home in the Wilmington area, but got stuck on the way and had to spend the night in a gas station parking lot. My family was supposed to fly home out of Myrtle Beach, but we had to change their flight because we could not get out of Southport. They said it was a 1000 year storm. The flooding crumbled roads, ruined homes, and washed away cars. To get in and out of town, you have to be creative and take crazy routes and that is as long as those roads don’t start to fail as the water recedes and traffic increases. We were able to get my family to the airport on Tuesday morning but we had to go way out of our way to do so. We were pulled over once by a Sheriff officer. I thought he was going to stop us because we were breaking curfew, but he was stopping us to tell us that we had to turn around because the road we were on was now closed. On the way back from the airport, they had closed Hwy 17 which is the main road between Myrtle Beach and Wilmington. We had to take a detour and find another way home. Luckily our home did not sustain any damage. Our yard was more flooded than we have ever seen it, but it receded quickly once the rain stopped. We did lose an oak tree in the side yard. It fell over with a wind gust, roots and all. It could not have fallen more perfectly to miss everything. Hoping the repairs are able to be made quickly. Thankful that this didn’t happen before Labor Day when all the tourists were still here.

Once the rain stopped, we got out and walked and road the golf cart around to evaluate the area. There were a lot of places we couldn’t get to because of the roads being flooded. Here are some pictures I took Monday.

Pics I took Tuesday

Pics from around the county from other people