Serving Barnwell County and it's neighbors since 1852
Waist deep in fresh rainwater, Ricardo Patterson is wading across the parking lot-turned-pond of the Town of Fairfax’s Garden Apartments 1 to check on his cousins, who like many others, put sandbags in front of their doors to prevent flooding during Tropical Storm Debby.
“I just want to make sure my family’s alright and everybody’s alright,” said Patterson after the first round of Debby’s rainfall waterlogged Allendale. “It’s still raining, so we don’t know how it’s gonna get over the next 12 hours.”
That was the scene for those in Allendale and Barnwell counties living in low-lying areas, as Debby dumped record rainfall on communities across the lowcountry and the southeast United States. Schools in Barnwell and Allendale were closed for several days.
The National Weather Service recorded 8.72 inches of rain in Allendale, between 9.93–10.59 inches of rain in Hampton County and between 9.13–13.78 inches of rain in Beaufort County; the level of rainfall Debby brought was exacerbated by human-caused climate change, according to meteorologists.
As ditches, creeks, parking lots, farms and other depressed land areas swelled with water, first responders arrived. In the Town of Fairfax, Allendale County Fire and Rescue — with the help of Fairfax Mayor Butch Sauls and several Fairfax Town Council members — pumped water out of the Fairfax Garden Apartments’ parking lot and helped supply residents with sandbags.
“The places that we got the most rain were the historically flooded areas,” said Kara Natasha Troy, Director of Emergency Management for Allendale County. Troy noted that wind damage was not as bad as expected, and the county did not have to open any shelters.
In Barnwell, several areas in the countryside near dirt roads were flooded, according to Roger Riley, Barnwell County’s Director of Emergency Management.
“We had several dirt roads to wash out, and that’s what kept schools from being able to pick up students,” Riley said. “We had a couple pond dams we were concerned about, … but in general we fared a lot better than Dorchester and Colleton and those areas.”
“I done seen it so many times, I guess I’ve got numb to it,” Gill said after getting home from work during a break in the rain. “But this time it takes the cake because it did more than what it usually do. … And guess what? The rain is still going to be going on.”
Although first responders managed to clear some of the water from Fairfax’s Garden Apartments 1, Troy said, the parking lot still pooled with multiple feet of water up to residents’ doors. “The fire department went out [to Garden Apartments 1] and tried to siphon out some water; it just was too much water at that time,” Troy said.
Hotter ocean waters and atmospheric temperatures as a result of human-caused climate change are quickly making hurricanes and tropical storms wetter, according to Jeff Masters, a meteorologist who formerly worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“Every degree celsius the atmosphere heats up, it can hold seven percent more water vapor,” Masters said. Since 2023, climate change has caused ocean temperatures to reach levels never before experienced in modern human history, according to NASA. “Burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide, and it acts to trap heat. A lot of the extremity we’re seeing with events like Debby is you’ve got a warmer atmosphere, a warmer ocean, [so] there’s going to be more water falling and more flooding.”
In some places, climate change increased the amount of rainfall brought on by Debby by 42 percent, according to estimates by Jeff Berardelli, a meteorologist at WFLA Tampa Bay. More hurricanes and tropical storms are on the way, with NOAA predicting 2024 will be an above average year for hurricanes as a result of climate change and the La Nina weather pattern.
Although parts of Fairfax experienced high levels of flooding, mayor Butch Sauls believes the town managed to avoid the worst effects. But, Sauls said, improvements to the town’s infrastructure will need to be a priority to manage future flooding.
“Most of the town held up pretty good,” Sauls said. “We’ve got some storm drains that need some cleaning out. We’ve got some storm drains you can stand a stick up in since it’s so packed.”
Elijah de Castro is a Report for America corps member who writes about rural communities like Allendale and Barnwell counties for The People-Sentinel. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep Elijah writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today.
