Closed by Helene, riverwalk near Columbia may still be closed a year later
More than half a year after Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on the West Columbia riverwalk, washing out the foundation from underneath sidewalks and leaving massive sinkholes, the city has not yet begun repairs to the popular walking trail.
The half-mile-long portion of the trail that begins near the West Columbia Amphitheater and connects to the neighboring Cayce portion of the riverwalk has been closed since late September when fallout from Helene flooded the trail and caused extensive damage to the pathway. It could take around a year or more after the flooding initially closed the riverwalk for the trail to be repaired and walkable again, as the city works alongside the Federal Emergency Management Agency to secure funding for the repairs.
“So far, we’ve worked to document the damage that’s down here to come up with a repair plan,” the city’s mayor, Tem Miles, explained in a video posted to the city’s social media April 25.
The next step is for the city council to select the contracting company that’ll complete the repair work. The council is set to pick a contractor during the May 6 meeting. It’s unclear when exactly work on the riverwalk would begin, as that date would be selected after the company is chosen and a contract is approved, city spokesperson Anna Huffman told The State.
“Throughout the process, we have followed all FEMA rules and guidelines, including three site visits with FEMA. To date, we have not received any notice that our project will not receive maximum reimbursement from FEMA,” Huffman said. “If the council approves the proposed contractor in the May meeting, the next steps would be to work with FEMA, city staff, and the contractor to draft a contract for the repairs.”
Once the selected contractor gets the go-ahead to begin work, the company would have 120 days, or around four months, to finish the work, according to city documents. That’d mean even if construction began the day after the scheduled council meeting, it wouldn’t be complete until September 4, 2025.
Hurricane Helene, which killed hundreds of people across the Southeast and devastated western North Carolina at the beginning of September, caused both the West Columbia and Cayce portions of the riverwalk along the Congaree River to be closed due to significant damages.
“This is the type of undermining we’re talking about, where the structure that holds up the concrete itself has washed out from beneath the trail,” Miles said in the video, showing portions of the concrete walking path without anything holding them up. Other damages include large sinkholes along the trail and broken support beams along the boardwalk.
Cayce’s portion of the trail opened a little over a month after significant flooding from the storm damaged parts of its riverwalk. That city, which directly borders West Columbia, spent $164,000 of its own money on repairs and then submitted a reimbursement request to FEMA, a spokesperson for Cayce told The State previously.
West Columbia waited on FEMA, which meant going through the federal agency’s process. Lexington County received a disaster declaration from FEMA around a week after the storm and the city submitted its paperwork to the agency on Oct. 14. The agency required the city to conduct site assessments and planning meetings before funding is dolled out.
“This is the process that we’ve always utilized whenever you have natural disasters, you work hand in hand with FEMA. There’s a lot of documentation that’s required,” Miles told The State. “We are being very cautious to make sure we are checking all the boxes that are required for reimbursement.”
The city leaned on FEMA’s disaster funds previously following the historic flooding in 2015, which caused an estimated $2.2 billion in damages across the state. Following damages caused by the flooding in 2015, the Cayce riverwalk didn’t fully reopen until 2018, and West Columbia’s section didn’t fully reopen until the previous year, according to previous reporting done by The State.
Because FEMA’s processes and requirements for reimbursement are very specific, West Columbia wanted to be cautious to ensure that it didn’t front the bill for the repairs only to not get reimbursed later.
“If you’re relying on or expecting to be reimbursed, as a matter of fiscal responsibility, then the decision we made was we had to comply with that stuff on the front end,” Miles said.
The city of Cayce, which chose to make the repairs using its own money and request to be reimbursed by FEMA, hasn’t yet reimbursed, city spokesperson Ashley Hunter told The State, but has submitted all its paperwork to the federal agency.
“[The riverwalk] is such an important item in our city so we went ahead and moved on it and are working with FEMA now on the reimbursement,” Hunter said.
This story was originally published April 29, 2025 at 2:17 PM.
