Letters: SCE&G needs to pay Pine Glen homeowners

Let’s have a little clarity on how the flooded homes in Pine Glen were allowed to be built. No homes were damaged by SCE&G’s intentional flooding of Pine Glen in 1965 because the only homes in the neighborhood were on the high end of what was then known as the Old Freshly tract.

After that flood, Columbia, SCE&G and the federal government collaborated to draw a new line across Pine Glen, saying to the owners, “If you build behind this line you are safe from flooding.” The lower end of the subdivision was abandoned. The city agreed to provide water and sewer and the new federal flood program agreed to insure the new homes built in the “safe” section that we now know as Pine Glen.

That my friends is how this happened; these facts are memorialized in Key Sales Co. v SCE&G, 1968.

The fact is that Pine Glen has never been safe from SCE&G. The utility must be held responsible for the destruction of Pine Glen and must at a minimum purchase our properties at the pre-flood value, regardless of whether they were mortgaged or insured.

SCE&G says its license makes it clear that it is not in the flood-control business. The people of Pine Glen have a message for SCE&G: Our neighbors are not in the business of providing a flood plain in the middle of our living rooms at no cost to SCE&G whenever SCE&G decides to flush our neighborhood down the toilet.

If you want it, buy it, and do it now. Not later.

This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 12:56 PM with the headline "Letters: SCE&G needs to pay Pine Glen homeowners."