Over 130 years later, a set of tracks runs on either side of a neighborhood and municipal buildings in low-lying south Dillon.

These two tracks, once a primary economic driver for the town, now serve as levees that trap water between them during floods, creating what many residents call a fish bowl. During Hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Florence last year, Dillon County’s emergency operations center was in this fish bowl.

An emergency operations center, or EOC, is activated during a disaster to serve as a central base for local officials to respond immediately and effectively to community needs.

“We had to go to manually operating the EOC, and that made the operation devastating,” said Moses Heyward, the Dillon County Emergency Management director, “That needs to change, because when you lose your brain of the EOC in radio communication, you have a problem.”

During Hurricane Florence, floodwaters from the Little Pee Dee River to the north and the Maple Swamp to the south flooded and shut down the Dillon County EOC along with the 911 call center, requiring emergency calls to be rerouted nearly 30 miles away to Florence, South Carolina. 

The calls would then be sent back to Dillon emergency responders through manual radios, making response time longer.

“It was like flying on a jet in a helicopter,” Heyward said.

Delayed response lasted for five days until a mobile 911 call center was installed in Dillon County.

Heyward has searched for grants to rebuild a new EOC on higher ground, but he has not found any grants that fund a project of that nature.

“They need to make a special provision to get Dillon County into a new EOC building relocated on higher ground,” Heyward said. “Without an EOC, 911 system, you are asking to get somebody hurt very bad if not possibly having casualties.”

Locally, funds to relocate the EOC are limited. The median household income in Dillon County is $30,866, and the poverty rate is nearly 30%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“You’re on a fixed income of what you’ve got in the tax base,” said Jarett Taylor, the town administrator in Latta, South Carolina. “You can’t really increase your taxes to a point where you can ever overcome something like this.”

South Dillon was not the only area of the town that flooded. The flooding was widespread in the city and the county, turning two other towns, Lake View and Latta, into islands.

“Downtown Dillon, every area and every storefront, was flooded in about three feet of water,” said Kenneth Smith, chairman of the Dillon County Long Term Recovery Group. “The whole downtown. It was like nothing you never seen.”

Flooding on the Little Pee Dee River in Dillon is a relatively modern phenomenon. The closest gauge for the river in nearby Horry County measured the crest at a record 17 feet during Matthew and Florence. The highest amount before Matthew was 16 feet in 1928. The river’s minimum flood stage is at 9 feet, according to the National Weather Service.

“I never expected flooding in Dillon County … but after 2016 and after 2018, we see that we can definitely have that happen in our area,” said Thesdia Bethea, assistant director at Dillon County Emergency Management.

Local funds are insufficient for Dillon County Emergency Management to respond to this recent onslaught of flooding, Heyward said.

“After a disaster … we pretty much have to request resources from the state, and it will make it so much easier for recovery efforts if we already have those resources in place,” Bethea said.

Officials in Dillon County don’t expect the flooding to stop any time soon.

“We’ve had two in the last three years. I don’t think it’s going to be a ‘if it ever happens again.’ It’s going to be ‘whenever it happens again,’” Taylor said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens this year.”

For Heyward, the priority is relocating Dillon County’s EOC to higher ground, so local officials can respond more effectively to future flooding.

“The bottom line,” he said. “They’ve got to get this EOC moved.”

Ben Sessoms

Ben Sessoms is a recent graduate of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, where he double majored in journalism and communication studies. During his time at Appalachian State, Sessoms was the news editor of the student newspaper, The Appalachian, where he covered issues ranging from free speech restrictions on campus to student voting rights. Sessoms also interned at the local Boone newspaper, the Watauga Democrat. You can find his work here.

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“Call the store – tell them I’m alive.”

His next words?

“I’m fine — I’m in a tree.” 

It was July 30, 2016, and Dave Carney found himself climbing to the top of a cherry tree outside The Wine Bin, the wine and liquor store he owns in historic downtown Ellicott City, Maryland.

Sitting in the tree, Carney recalled an unimaginable scene unfolding below him.

“There are logs floating by, I’m literally watching the dumpster [floating] in the parking lot. I’m watching cars float away,” he said. 

Attempting to escape the flood waters, Carney held on to the cherry tree as the flood that would claim two lives and wipe out the city’s historic downtown cascaded around him. 

“It was surreal,” he said. “It was like watching a movie that is not there.”

The next morning, Carney heard something no business owner wants to hear. 

“Sam, my staff person, came down and called me and said, ‘I think you’re out of business,’” Carney recalled.

“I think the town is closed,” he recalls her telling him.

But like many other business owners in town, Carney persevered and reopened his store, only to be flooded again less than two years later. 

Flooding is part of the town’s history. Established as a mill town in 1772, Ellicott City sits in one of the lowest parts of Howard County, Maryland. Given the steep terrain and abundant water sources, the area made for an ideal location to harvest the water’s power to grind flour and wheat.

Over two centuries later, the mills have left, but the water’s power hasn’t. 

In 2016 and 2018, Ellicott City experienced two 1,000-year storms. The Patapsco River and its tributary, the Tiber River, which runs under several businesses in town, rose past capacity after six inches of rain fell in just two hours. Less than two years later, eight inches of rain fell in the town in another two-hour span, once again causing the rivers to rise and overflow.

While cars were swept away by water and sidewalks around town were torn up by both floods, the city’s small businesses scene took a big hit in both storms. 

Before the 2016 flood, Ellicott City’s Main Street housed 141 businesses that contributed $124.2 million in business activity to Howard County, Maryland, and employed 955 workers, many of who live above the businesses they work in, according to a report by the University of Baltimore’s Jacob France Institute.

About a quarter of the businesses left by the end of 2018 after the second flood, according to Ellicott City Partnership, the organization responsible for preserving the heritage and vitality of historic Ellicott City.

The picturesque East Coast town’s economy relies on businesses like Carney’s business, small ice cream parlors, restaurants and bars and boutique shops to generate income. 

This summer, Ian Schwindt pointed to a spot on the wall just below the ceiling in Mooreko’s Ice Cream, a small ice cream shop he manages in the city’s downtown. 

“The water was up to here,” said Schwindt, holding his hand about six-and-a-half feet up the freshly painted wall, referring to the 2018 flood.

“A lot of people lost their businesses for the second time,” said Chris McIntyre, who works at Moorenko’s Ice Cream and also lives above it.

Joan Eve Shea-Cohen was one of these people.

After her antique shop, Joan Eve Antiques and Collectibles, was filled with water and destroyed in the 2016 flood, Shea-Cohen reopened her business in a new, smaller location. 

“Everyone said we would reopen,” Shea-Cohen said. Why wouldn’t I ⁠— they said it was a 1,000-year flood.” 

But then the 2018 flood destroyed her business for a second time. 

Between physical damage taken on by the buildings and lost inventory, including fine china, chandeliers and antique furniture, Shea-Cohen said she lost nearly $400,000 between the two floods. 

“I couldn’t go back there again,” Shea-Cohen said. “Not financially and not in my mind.”

Today, the town continues to rebuild its downtown, taking small steps to return to the way it used to, according to local business owners.

The current plan in place to manage flood waters in town includes the demolition of four buildings, most of them once housing businesses, to help alleviate future flooding in the town, according to Howard County Executive Calvin Ball’s office. 

The four buildings are built above where the Tiber River runs, and removing the buildings would give the river more space to rise and move before it reaches capacity and makes its way to the road. 

Things still aren’t back to the way they used to be, Carney said

“After the ‘16 flood, everything was normal,” Carney said. “Now, it doesn’t look normal it’s physically changed.”Outside The Wine Bin, the cherry tree he climbed in to save himself during the 2016 flood still stands tall — overlooking construction crews working to manage water for the next time it floods.

Christian Gravius

Christian Gravius is a recent graduate of St. Bonaventure University where he majored in journalism and minored in English. Gravius covered high school sports for the Olean Times Herald in New York, and worked as a marketing intern at the world’s largest YMCA in Estes Park, Colorado. Gravius covered the St. Bonaventure Bonnies in the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in Dallas. Gravius won the top award in the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation competition for an essay he wrote about a former teammate’s running career before and after a life-changing accident. Gravius will pursue a master’s degree at South Dakota State University in sports and recreation administration. See his work here.

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“I am who I am today because of what I’ve gone through. I mean I’ve lost a son,  I’ve gone through Hurricane Katrina. I went through the [1964] Alaskan Earthquake,” Buffone said. “I know what it’s like to start over at 30, to start over at 60.”

 In 2005, it fell to the now-retired nurse to help rescue patients and pull them onto the roof of St. Rita’s Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana, where 35 trapped residents ultimately drowned in their beds and wheelchairs.

“They weren’t just patients they were family members … I mean it was such a tight knit family,” Buffone said. “We were all like a family, the people that worked in the kitchen, the nurse aides, everybody.” 

The water came in through the front doors of the building and pushed people out a window. Then there was silence, she said. 

“They told us that it was like the eye of the storm and then it was just pouring rain and you could hear people calling out for help.”

Even as the rain pounded patients and staff, she and others pulled people to the roof. 

“It stung so bad … and I thought if it burned that bad on me then I can imagine how it felt for other people, especially the older people,” Buffone said, adding that she started cutting mattresses so they could cover themselves.

“We saw people in the water that didn’t make it, we saw animals that didn’t make it … I mean things that you never thought you would see,” Buffone said. 

She moved to Michigan after the storm, but moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2009. Once there, she worried constantly about the possibility of another hurricane. She walked away from everything a second time. 

“I don’t think it will ever go away,” Buffone said

Katrina was not her first disaster. Buffone was 8 years old and living in Anchorage, Alaska, when she survived a 9.2 magnitude earthquake, the second largest in recorded history, lasting almost 4.5 minutes and leaving 139 dead. 

“My father told us to get out of the house, and I remember we didn’t have any shoes on so my father went back in to get us our slippers,” Buffone said. “For a child, it lasted forever.” 

She remembers her father shoving potatoes into pipes to prevent flooding. 

“I didn’t feel it was as devastating as being in Hurricane Katrina,” Buffone said.

Today, she is back in Flat Rock. 

“I don’t think it will ever go away,” Buffone said about her memories.“With the internet, I find myself going back and looking and seeing, and wondering what could have been done.

“The people and the culture and everything from Louisiana … I still have that and I’ll never get away from that,” Buffone said. 

Briana Castañón

Briana Castañón is a graduate student pursuing a degree in journalism at the University of North Texas. A native Texan, she has wanted to work in news since third grade. She interned at Denton Television, the city’s TV channel. She also reported for the campus television station, North Texas Daily TV. Her story about a local high school teacher who was an undocumented immigrant was nominated and won a Lone Star Emmy. She also has experience as a TV producer, editor and anchor. She studied and reported abroad in London the summer of 2018. View examples of her work here.

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She’s strong and mighty, she protects against enemies and, according to Conway city spokesman Bobby M. Kelly, “she held on like hair on a biscuit” when her city was in danger.

Her name is Lollie Levee.

Conway needed a defender after the flood of 1927. Historian Cindy Beckman recounted that up to 15 feet of water from the Arkansas River covered the Lollie district, prompting the construction of the seven-mile pile of earth in 1929. Later named the Lollie Levee, residents of the city and of Faulkner County refer to the levee as a she, as if she were a person.

The flood of 2019 was the Lollie Levee’s greatest test yet in 90 years. Residents in the area became concerned after the river breached the levee in Dardanelle, Arkansas. The damage was catastrophic. Many farms and homes flooded.

Faulkner County Judge Jim Baker said that the levee in Dardanelle was constructed in the same year as the levee in Lollie, so after hearing that the Dardanelle levee breached, he was sick to his stomach. “I was concerned about it,” he said of the Lollie Levee.

Farmers bordering the Lollie levee were told to prepare for evacuation. If the levee were to breach, their fields would be inundated with feet of water, enough to decimate their crops for the year. Their homes would have been swept away as well.

Conway residents were worried, too. If the levee breached, water would have crept into the western part of the city for the first time in history. One resident was particularly anxious about a shopping complex along one of the city’s main roads, far away from the levee. “All that was in the flood projections,” Robyn Johnson said.  “A ton of people work there and even more shop there.”

Those close to the levee believed in her fighting spirit. She had been properly maintained by the Faulkner County Levee and Drainage District No. 1. in the years leading up to the flood, according to Baker. Officials from the drainage district told Baker that Lollie was “the best levee in western Arkansas,” Baker said. Their advice to him was simple: worry about something else.

But when so much was at stake, it was difficult not to worry. For six days and six nights, the levee was monitored nonstop as the water slowly eroded the soil. Residents built a backup dam in case of a breach, but when the river crested, Lollie was still standing.

“You build up enough anxiety about this, you do what you can to help with the sandbags and donating time and money to charity, and you’re told it’s not going to be enough in the end,” Johnson said. “Then, just like that, it is.”

She had never been so proud of an inanimate object in her life, she said.

Because of the upkeep by the levee board and the Army Corps of Engineers, the Lollie Levee was able to withstand the rushing river, saving the homes, farms and city behind it, Baker said. She took quite a beating, but in the end, she kept the water out.

“It held at the last three-foot block,” Baker said, holding back tears. “And the only explanation I’ve got is answered prayers and divine intervention.” He described the moment he realized the levee was going to hold as the biggest sense of relief one could have. As the river started to recede, the eroded part of the levee began to sink. Baker was relieved that “it never did cave in while the water was up high.”

For her service to the city of Conway, the Lollie Levee was granted a key to the city. It’s a shining reminder of her strength and willpower, Kelly said.

“We felt it was a good gesture to show our appreciation. Thankfully, she doesn’t have legs and she’s not going to go around the city unlocking every door we’ve got!” Kelly told THV11, an Arkansas news station.

Johnson added, “Lollie Levee being presented with a key to the city was one of the most adorable and quintessentially southern things I have ever seen. Second only to it being referred to as having ‘held on like a hair on a biscuit.’’’

Baker thinks that more levee boards will be created after this disaster so Arkansas will be better prepared if severe flooding happens again soon. He hopes to see less stories like Dardanelle and more like Conway and the Lollie Bottoms.

Levee boards also help secure towns financially. “Since the Faulkner County Levee Board had kept the levee up to national standards, there will be federal money to rebuild it,” said Beckman. According to Baker, 100% of the repairs will be covered.

These days, the Lollie Levee is resting. The Corps of Engineers gave her the equivalent of a nice spa day, which included a temporary patch. She’ll get a full makeover in the form of a permanent patch soon.

Baker is proud of the levee’s accolades, but he is more proud of the fight she put up for her people.

“The fact that she held… that’s what we’re so proud of in the city of Conway,” he said. “It’s a grand ole lady.”

Jordan Elder

Jordan Elder is a recent graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a certificate in leadership and ethics. Her focus is on broadcasting and digital storytelling. Elder was a producer for “Catalyst,” an Arizona PBS series that explores scientific research at ASU, and a production intern for KPNX 12 News for two semesters. She served as a host and contributor to the entertainment news program “Cronkite Cut” for three years. Elder returns to Cronkite School in the fall to complete a master’s degree and report on sustainability issues for Cronkite News. View her portfolio here.

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“This is not us just because of Hurricane Michael,” Summers said. “We’ve never lived in the house by ourselves. We’ve always been helping people.”

Summers and her husband, Sam, built their house 20 years ago on the Florida Panhandle, located 25 minutes outside of Panama City. When Hurricane Michael hit their community in October, the Summers and their 7-year old daughter, Gabby, instantly opened their property to more than 50 people who were displaced by the Category 5 storm, something they’ve done many times before.

Now, eight months and counting since Michael hit, the number of residents fluctuates weekly as families save enough money to move out or new families move in. When News21 visited in early June, 22 people were temporary residents.

When people arrive at what Summers refers to as a “tent community,” most have few possessions on them, if they have any at all. Summers noted that some even lack basic toiletries such as a toothbrush.

“Our goal is to help them get on their feet [and] save their money, so when the time does come, whenever they get the housing available, they have the money to start over,” Summers said. “It’s tedious, but it’s worth it.”

Residents are housed in tents, which Summers admits is not ideal, but she ensures each tent is equipped with air conditioning, electricity and real mattresses in an attempt to try and provide a  sense of normalcy. Residents are granted full access to the main house to watch television or cool off, and every night there is a home cooked meal, a combined effort between the temporary residents and Summers that adds a true community feel.

The Summers do all this without charging a penny. While a few local churches donate food and supplies to help Summers provide for her community, the rest of the costs and sacrifices fall on Shelly and her husband.

“We have spent a lot of money on this, but that’s OK, and we would do it all over again,” Summers said.

The Summers attribute their “strict community morals, values and standards” to their individual upbringings.

Although residents are not required to pay rent, maintaining a community with this many people and over 100 animals — mostly rabbits — requires assistance, which is why Shelly asks her residents to give back by helping around the property.

“Whether it’s pick up trash or vacuum the house or help put the donations up, do something. You have to do something. And for the most part everybody pretty much does chip in,” she said.

Shelly has just three rules for residents: no drinking, no drugs and no drama. Failure to comply with those three will result in eviction from the tent community.

“My neighbors will tell you we’re very quiet. [They] didn’t even know we were doing this until the news started showing up,” Summers said.

Amanda Bohn said she and her husband and their three children — two sons and one daughter — arrived in March, and they will continue to stay until they can afford to put themselves in a home.

Bohn did not want to ask for help when she and her family got evicted from their home after Hurricane Michael, but she decided that living on the Summers’ property was better than living in an RV on a vacant lot.

“Shelly is a blessing for what she is doing,” Bohn said. “A lot of us would probably be sleeping under a bridge or under some trees somewhere.”

In just a few months, Shelly has had several success stories, including a family who recently relocated to West Virginia. But as people continue to struggle and recover from the hurricane and its aftermath, the Summers family will welcome them into their home, no matter the cost.

“The ultimate goal is to get them in their own permanent housing,” Summers said. “But until that’s available, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing.”

Peter Nicieja

Peter Nicieja is a senior at DePauw University pursuing a degree in music with a second major in communication. Nicieja has held various leadership positions with student media organizations, including programming director for DePauw’s radio station, WGRE, news editor for The DePauw newspaper, and producer for D3TV, the campus TV station.  Nicieja also has a background in filmmaking and graphic design.

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