Rain a welcome sight, but comes with a price

The Old Chester Road bridge's northbound lane collapsed Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning as a raging King's Creek forced tons of tree limbs and branches into the bridge support, forming a natural wooden dam against the bridge. The bridge will likely have to be replaced and remain closed for the foreseeable future, creating a several miles long detour for folks headed south towards Hickory Grove.

Brian Pierce had no idea what was in store for him when he stepped out onto the deck of his Lincoln Street home early Wednesday.

He had noticed his air conditioning unit wasn't working and then noticed his dog, who normally roamed the back yard, was laying on the deck. Then he discovered the shocking answer.

His yard was completely flooded and the water level was just inches from his first floor. At the front of his home, his family's car was submerged in water all the way up to its headlights, filling the interior.

This had never happened before, Pierce said.

To make sure his two children, ages 6 and 11, got to school, they were evacuated out of the home through a side window. "That was the only way out of the house," Pierce said. "Every other way was blocked."

At least five inches of rain between Tuesday and Wednesday caused sporadic damage and at least one accident in Cherokee County.

The bridge on Old Chester Road at the Cherokee/York county line was closed Wednesday after a raging King's Creek pushed tons of tree trunks and limbs into the bridge, snapping one of the timber bridge supports and causing the northbound lane to collapse toward the water.

The bridge collapse was discovered just before 6 a.m. Wednesday when a Smyrna man traveling north on Old Chester Road, 44- year-old Glen Feely, noticed the collapsed section as he was driving and tried to swerve around it.

Lance Cpl. Jeff Gaskin of the South Carolina Highway Patrol said Feely lost control of his vehicle, went into a ditch off the right side of the road and struck a culvert pipe.

Just a few hours later, a team of South Carolina Department of Transportation engineers and a bridge inspector were scouring the bridge from top to bottom to assess the damage.

"It's definitely going to be shut down for a while," said Stephen Ellis, the SCDOT's resident maintenance engineer for Cherokee County. "More than likely, this will be beyond repair."

In Blacksburg, a bridge over a creek on Brugg Road was closed from Tuesday evening until about midday Wednesday when the creek topped the road surface. SCDOT Bridge inspector Todd McNinch, who has about 1,400 bridges in his district, gave the Brugg Street bridge a clean bill of health after an inspection.

Besides some mud and gravel washing onto some roadways, the City of Gaffney was relatively unaffected by the downpour, thanks to some advanced planning.

"We had crews out cleaning drains (before the rainfall) to be on the safe side," said Mike Teague, the city's public works director.

Several roadways in the county, however, did hold some water. One washout was reported off McGill Highway, for instance.

A stretch of Beech Street, just a half block from where Pierce's home was nearly flooded on Lincoln Street, also had standing water.

Gaffney Board of Public Works personnel removed several pieces of wood from the storm drain near the Beech Street and 6th Street intersection that had been blocking the drain. That not only took care of the water on Beech Street, but also at Pierce's property, too.

So how much rain did we get?

Broad River flow increases dramatically after Tuesday's precipitation.

Heavy rainfall stirs unpleasant memories.