Rivers across much of the state were receding Monday, days after they spilled their banks amid heavy rains associated with Hurricane Helene.
But the rivers left a trail of soggy, water-logged communities, and the state was anxiously waiting for all of the flood water to be gone.
While the Columbia area remained on watch for signs of trouble, statistics show that the highest water levels connected to the storm have passed in many areas. Barring any more heavy rain — which isn’t forecast this week — river levels should continue to drop, said riverkeepers and officials with the National Weather Service.
“We don’t anticipate any additional significant flooding to occur,’’ the weather service’s John Quagliariello said during a news conference Monday with Gov. Henry McMaster.
That’s good news for some communities and metropolitan areas, including those in parts of the Upstate and the North Augusta-Aiken area along the Georgia border. Those areas felt much of Helene’s fury in South Carolina.
Tonya Bonitatibus, the Savannah Riverkeeper, said wind damage appeared to be a bigger issue in her area, where she estimated thousands of trees had fallen. The area also had been in the midst of a drought, so lakes upstream from Augusta and North Augusta had more storage space to hold the torrent of water..
“We were really lucky because we were in a drought stage,’’ she said. Lakes “Strom Thurmond and Hartwell are massive. So they were able to hold back a lot of the flow.’’
Still, Bonitatibus said that in some spots, flooding from Helene was dramatic.
During the storm, some tributaries of the Savannah rose quickly to catastrophic heights.
One was in the Modoc community, where Stevens Creek reached a record flood stage of more than 43 feet in a matter of hours. The creek, not far from the Augusta-Aiken area, is normally two to three feet, according to the National Weather Service.
River levels are still rising in a few places in the lower part of the state. One of those is the Santee River near the Jamestown community of Berkeley County, not far from Charleston. The river there is not expected to reach a major flood stage until later this week.
Part of the Savannah River above the city of Savannah also is expected to continue rising until late week, but flood levels are expected to be moderate, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s water prediction service.
Part of the Great Pee Dee River in eastern South Carolina won’t crest until late week, but that also is not expected to produce major flooding.
Debra Buffkin, who heads the Winyah Rivers Alliance in eastern South Carolina, said people across the state will be glad when things dry out. Going through a flood is painful, said Buffkin, who has experienced multiple floods from hurricanes that have brushed Myrtle Beach and communities to the west.
“People can hear about it, but if you don’t actually know someone in your family or have a friend who has experienced it, you may not understand that devastation,’’ she said.
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