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Aiken County EMA says possible flooding for low lying areas

Thursday, Sep. 1, 2016 News 12 First at Five

AIKEN COUNTY, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) — Aiken County EMA is preparing for rain and wind after a conference call with State Emergency Management. Right now though the county is monitoring with nothing too serious expected.

“It is businesses as usual, I mean it’s predicted to be a category 1(hurricane) when it comes ashore, so there will be some wind and some rain in it and again it depends on the exact track,” Aiken County EMA Director Paul Matthews said.

Despite the business as usual approach, the county is moving to OPCON 4, meaning heightened precautions. County EMA workers have spent today getting constant updates from the National Weather Service. The agency bringing together law enforcement, including Aiken Public Safety. Teams are ready to roll into areas where heavy flooding could happen, including Richland and Whiskey roads.

The county says families living near bodies of water like Langley Dam or Sudlow Lake need to be on alert.

“Just any low lying area close to rivers, creeks, streams, those types of areas,” Matthews said, “But we do expect to be some localized flooding if we get as much rain as they say we are.”

Aiken county schools not taking any chances canceling classes tomorrow. The district making that decision due to concerns about buses and people driving to school during the heavy rain.

Matthews says he does not expect tomorrow’s rain event to be remotely close to what we saw last October. With areas like Barnwell and Richmond counties surrounding them they are on stand by to help just like they did last October with Columbia.

EMA says they will be monitoring Hermine into tomorrow and plan accordingly from there.

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Source: News