What’s the status of South Carolina’s damage, response to Helene?

HURRICANE HELENE: Latest updates on the recovery — 24/7

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - Leaders at the South Carolina State House say they are prepared to build back and take on whatever costs the devastating and deadly Hurricane Helene brought upon the state.

But the bulk of that work from the legislature’s perspective won’t get started until 2025.

South Carolina’s Senate president and speaker of the House told reporters they are not planning to call their back for a special session in response to Helene before January, when they will gavel in for their next regular legislative session

“As we have more time to evaluate the damage, having been in an area that’s been impacted, those assessments continue to be done, so I think it’s premature at this time to have really any type of feel from a financial standpoint,” said Senate President Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee. “But by January, I think we’ll have a much better handle.”

State leaders say their focus has now shifted from response to recovery.

For the South Carolina Department of Transportation – that means focusing on debris removal – with both its crews and contractors at work.

Homeowners and renters in 23 total counties, plus the Catawba Indian Nation – are now eligible for individual assistance from FEMA – which covers uninsured damages or losses – to help with costs like serious needs, basic home repairs, and rentals of temporary housing.

FEMA says more than $57 million has already been approved – and it urges people who have been denied assistance – not to give up right away.

State leaders also announced Monday a series of events called “Team South Carolina Days” – where people can access state, federal, and nonprofit resources as they recover from Helene.

They’ll start in the Upstate this week – and travel to other parts of the state in the coming weeks.

“To provide local residents and businesses affected by the storm a one-shop stop opportunity to apply for relief and resources available, South Carolina Gov. Hemry McMaster said.

Last week

McMaster on Friday paid his second visit to the CSRA in a week to view and discuss damage from Hurricane Helene.

After visiting Aiken a few days earlier, McMaster was in Edgefield County on Friday.

“I don’t think that anyone needs to explain to people of Edgefield or Aiken counties how bad this storm has been,” he said. “This part of the state does not usually experience these kind of things.”

He cited the number of fallen trees, many of which knocked down power lines and caused outages all across the state.”

He noted that out of 3 million electric customers in the state, service was down for 1.3 million last Friday morning after Helene.

A week later, that number was down to 272,290.

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Storm damage near Old Fort Road in Flat Rock area of Henderson County after Hurricane Helene.

There’s good news and bad news about power outages in CSRA

Just when things seemed to be looking better for some Augustans without power, the goalposts moved.

Spokesperson Dominion Energy-South Carolina, Paul Fischer, said every storm is unique and so...

“And that’s great progress, but we need to make more, particularly in Aiken and Edgefield counties that were really hit hard, and that help is on the way,” he said.

As linemen finish work on one location, they’re moving to the next.

“We have people working around the clock, and we were informed Dominion is taking all their people that have finished their work elsewhere and they’re bringing them here,” he said.

Those 3,000 linemen will have their work cut out for them: 53% of the power is out in Edgefield County, and 34% of the power is out in Aiken County, McMaster said.

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“So we’re going to we’re going to fix this situation. It’s going to get better. We ask people to have patience.”

He said in some places, it’s not a matter of just putting up new power poles but of deeply rebuilding the grid.

Aiken County is one of those places, where some people report being told it will take weeks for their power to be restored.”

It won’t be easy to move past such a monster storm, he said.

Beech Island couple died hugging each other

John Savage said his grandparents were found hugging one another in the bed, adding that the family thinks it was God’s plan to take them together, rather than one suffer without the other.

Esta foto, proporcionada por Laurel Lindsay, muestra a Marcia y Jerry Savage, quienes murieron...

“Well, this was a tough one. This was hard. This is one for the record books,” he said. “And there’s nothing we can do to stop them; all we can do is be prepared.”

On Thursday, McMaster was asked at a different news conference whether it might be better to bury the power lines.

“That would be a good federal project, but they’re expensive,” McMaster said. “But we wouldn’t have some of the problems we have now if we had had more in certain places, and of course, that would save us a lot of these expenses. But there are a lot of discussions — every time we have something like this, we learn things that we can do a little bit better.”