’We’re hoping the Lord will calm that water’: Why a river community wants to stay put

Floodwaters crept toward Ronnie Alston’s house in Bucksport from two directions after Hurricane Matthew in 2016 but stopped just short of his home of 43 years.

Alston and his neighbors know it could be a different story over the next few days, when trillions of gallons of water dropped by Hurricane Florence flush the Great Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers even farther from their banks on either side of the close-knit community south of Conway.

But as the two rivers inch slowly toward record levels, many of Bucksport’s roughly 875 residents vow to stick it out, occasionally glancing at news reports or walking outside to check the river. Few, if any, see the flooding in recent years as reason to permanently leave a community where most neighbors know each other by name and many can remember when even the main roads were made of dirt.

“It’s hard to get them from around here,” Alston said. “It’s a good neighborhood, and everybody here owns their own land, so it’s hard for them to leave.”

On Tuesday afternoon, nearly 70 people had taken refuge at the Red Cross shelter at the James R. Frazier Community Center in Bucksport. About half of them were Bucksport families who refused to be caught in their homes by river flooding. They brought blankets and comforters from their own beds to the shelter’s cots for what could be a lengthy stay.

But more families had not left. Some who stayed clung to faith that the floodwaters would not surge far enough past Matthew levels to seriously damage their homes.

Two years ago, 63-year-old Rebecca Sherman’s home was surrounded by water, but it didn’t enter the house. As her grandchildren played tag outside Tuesday, she said she would stay until ordered to evacuate.

“We’re hoping the Lord will calm that water,” Sherman said. “He can do all things.”

The Waccamaw River is expected to surpass the 17.9-foot flooding record set by Matthew in October 2016, reaching 19.9 feet by Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. The Great Pee Dee River is expected to reach 30.1 feet, 11 feet above flood stage but 3 feet short of the all-time record, set in 1945.

Bucksport residents were doing what they could to prepare Tuesday. Freddie Burroughs and his cousin cleaned out ditches and drainage canals in their neighborhood Monday and Tuesday morning, picking up tree limbs, bottles, cans and even a fish net so water can drain faster.

“The county should have been done that,” said Burroughs, a 57-year-old painter and lifelong Bucksport resident. “We had to take it upon ourselves. … After we got that trash out, it flowed like a river.”

Thayes Frazier, 76, said he also cleaned out a ditch by his house and vowed not to leave even if the river washes into his home on Frazier Road. “I can’t control it,” Frazier said of the possible flooding. “Nothing I can do with that.”

For some Bucksport residents still rebuilding after Matthew, the flooding is coming too soon.

Tuesday afternoon, Kenny Johnston was swinging by his daughter’s home on Martin Luther Drive to pick up a vacuum cleaner. He said no one had lived in the trailer since the 2016 storm flooded it out. But they had gutted everything and were just starting to replace the walls and flooring before Florence rolled in.

More flooding would start the process over again.

“That’s what they worry about,” Johnston said. But that doesn’t mean the family has thought much about leaving Bucksport for good.

“It’s a good area. They’re good people around here,” Johnston said with a grin from his pickup. “Some of them.”

This story was originally published September 18, 2018 at 7:27 PM.