PINE GLEN: Renovated home after flood ‘a blessing’ for Pine Glen resident

Flowers and grass will wait as Jennifer Gneiser settles into her St. Andrews home, renovated after significant flood damage last fall.

The repair of her home in the Pine Glen neighborhood, accomplished largely by volunteers, is something Gneiser says she’ll repay by helping others in need.

“This is the biggest gift ever,” she said. “It is a blessing. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

Gneiser is one of the first residents to return to the neighborhood a mile north of Interstate 20 that was hit hard when the lower Saluda River overflowed Oct. 4.

The river spilled out of its banks after the rare release of millions of gallons of water from Lake Murray upstream to keep pressure off the lake’s earthen dam during a record rainfall.

For Gneiser, “shock started to set in” as she began coping with challenges left by the disaster – including sorting through her muddy and moldy belongings.

“I learned how easy it is for everything you have to be wiped away,” she said.

Gneiser relied on the nonprofit St. Bernard Project for advice on whether to renovate or abandon her home of 10 years.

After assessing the choices and finances, relying on the group for repairs “was the only option for me,” she said.

The group was created in 2006 to help coordinate recovery in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It now goes to other flooded areas to join church congregations and other nonprofit organizations in fixing homes.

While consulted regularly on the renovation, Gneiser trusted the volunteers would do the job well without hands-on supervision.

“I didn’t come out and stand over people,” she said. “I knew I had to step back and let them do it.”

Returning to her 41-year-old home after five months, with its new floors, kitchen cabinets and appliances, bathrooms and paint, is like moving elsewhere, she said.

“It’s just new and different,” she said. “It takes getting used to.”

Gneiser’s experiences are “a very good meter” for what Pine Glen residents are going through, neighborhood leader Mark Fuge said.

Overall, 111 of 134 homes in the neighborhood were flooded, Lexington County officials say.

So far, three homes have been demolished. Dumpsters full of construction debris line streets as repairs continue on dozens of others.

“There’s more progress rebuilding than not,” Fuge said. “There’s still a few (people) trying to figure out what’s best.”

His family just moved back into its home after repairs.

The challenges were what Fuge expected. But “going through it, it’s hard day by day,” he said.

Meanwhile, Gneiser continues to unpack her belongings that could be rescued.

It’s a task that sometimes brings back unpleasant memories. “Every box you go through is reliving the situation again,” she said.

Storms also make her apprehensive, fearful that she’ll be flooded again. “I get high anxiety sometimes,” she said.

Gneiser and her two sons gave some items donated to them to a local charity as a first step toward fulfilling their goal of repaying the generosity they have received.

The aid her family was given in the aftermath of the flood taught her “there’s still good in people. It reaffirmed my faith in humanity.”

Gneiser, a midlevel manager at a computer software company, is dreaming about what to plant in a backyard that’s now sunny after it lost some dozen pine trees.

“Other things need to be done first, but that will happen, ” she said.

This story was originally published April 9, 2016 at 9:09 PM with the headline "PINE GLEN: Renovated home after flood ‘a blessing’ for Pine Glen resident."