Richland leaders lay out intermediate, long-term flood recovery goals at retreat

Richland County is looking at a seven-year flood recovery process before the community can consider itself fully recuperated from October’s historic deluge, disaster recovery personnel told County Council on Thursday.

Flood recovery was a key discussion at council’s annual planning retreat, held Thursday and Friday in downtown Charleston. A handful of residents traveled nearly two hours to attend the public meeting to hear what their public officials talked about.

Michael King, the county’s disaster recovery chief, laid out intermediate and long-term goals and recommendations for the county’s ongoing flood recovery efforts.

Chief among the goals four months after the flood is identifying and addressing residents’ still unmet needs, King said.

“We’re watching our citizens literally go broke” in the aftermath of the flood, King said. “And we’ve got to do something about it.”

One of the county’s top intermediate and long-term priorities, King said, should be to provide accessible interim housing solutions for those whose homes suffered significant damage or were destroyed by the flood and to develop permanent housing solutions for the coming years.

Other intermediate and long-term needs that must be prioritized, King said. Those include supporting the reestablishment of damaged businesses, providing emotional and psychological support to flood victims, and rebuilding infrastructure to meet future needs and help make assets more resistant to future flooding.

Among the immediate steps King recommended the county take in coming weeks are:

▪ Pass an ordinance waiving permitting fees to allow property owners, contractors and volunteer organizations to get to work rebuilding. Lexington County already has done this, King said. Council could take up a first reading of the ordinance in February.

▪ Coordinate federal, state and local government resources with nonprofit and volunteer resources to build a unified case-management system to not allow people and unmet needs to fall through cracks. Any need brought to any organization would be entered into one system and followed up on by the appropriate providers until it has been completely met, King said.

▪ Establish a “Blue Ribbon Committee” to make recommendations to County Council on prioritizing recovery projects to get the biggest impact from relief funds when they come in. The committee would begin meeting in February.

▪ Aggressively apply for any and all relief funds available. For example, the county’s application for federal Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds, which will be awarded to the state and distributed to local governments, is due in early April.

Councilman Kelvin Washington said he has been frustrated by what has seemed like a lack of urgency in some relief efforts.

In his district in Lower Richland, Washington said residents still are suffering from mold, leaky roofs and compromised wells and septic systems. People are struggling to find help and navigate the recovery channels, he said.

“I still just don’t have a good feel that the county has their hands wrapped around everything,” Washington said. “There’s been flooding around the country, and there are (rapid response) models ... that we could have had in place.”

Council Chairman Torrey Rush said he’s ready to see the county do whatever it takes to move along the recovery process.

Regarding King’s recommendations for waiving permit fees and establishing a unified case management system, Rush said, “Should we have done it sooner? Maybe, that’s possible.

“But if that’s what we need to do right now to make sure that we get things right now, we need to go ahead and do it.”