Horry County leaders meet with Bucksport residents to talk about flood-mitigation efforts

BUCKSPORT, S.C. (WBTW) — With river levels rising into the weekend in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Debby, members of the Bucksport community and Horry County leaders got together Wednesday evening to discuss flooding concerns.

County authorities took steps in recent days to prepare the community for what they say will be flooding along the lines of Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Officials said crews did in three days what would normally take three months to get ready for the high water.

They said they’re confident in the engineering but that it still needs to be put to the test.

“You have residents that have never recovered from Matthew,” resident Kevin Mishon said. “So, of course, this is a high-anxiety moment for a lot of the residents here.”

Fire and police officials, county council members and engineers were at the James R. Frazier Community Center to support the community. The county also has its incident command center and other equipment in place and ready to go in an emergency.

“Not coming from halfway across the county, it’s already here, it’s just up the street,” said Randy Webster, assistant county administrator for public safety. “We have folks here all night long, all day long, watching that and everything is ready to go.”

Officials said they installed a 15-foot-tall border using 750 loads of dirt. It’s the first time they’ve tried this engineering tactic, but if it works, it will cut off the flow of water.

County leaders said they have worked on the project since 2019, but concerns from environmental groups slowed their progress. Longtime resident Kevin Mishon raised concerns about the latest effort being a band-aid.

“Can we fix it now, being that we’re in a situation where we don’t have a Florence level, but when will we?” Mishon said. “Are we going to be ready for that?”

County officials said that while they are confident in the plan, if the barrier gives out, water could rise in a matter of hours.

Community leader Harold Phillips helped organize the meeting because he wanted to get residents on the same page.

“So my thing was to get with the county and find out who could give the information to the community and get them to come, and we had the community come and they hear what need to be [doing],” Phillips said.

County officials said people should continue acting as if the community will flood and have a plan in place. They also said the emergency operations center will be open Thursday morning to assist.

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Adrianna Lawrence is a multimedia journalist at News13. Adrianna is originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and joined the News13 team in June 2023 after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in May 2023. Keep up with Adrianna on Instagram, Facebook , and X, formerly Twitter . You can also read more of her work, here .

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