Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby reported live from Myrtle Beach on the morning of Aug. 8 to detail the latest in both coastal and river flooding risks in the Carolinas.
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00:00And joining us now is Aaron Rigsby.
00:02He is live currently and out in the field.
00:04He's been following this storm for the past week,
00:08obviously on the ground there
00:09in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
00:11Aaron, what are you finding now?
00:15Yeah, good morning guys.
00:16So as you can probably tell behind me,
00:18even though that flash flood threat
00:19has kind of been gradually pushing off to the north,
00:21we're seeing a lot of those lingering effects
00:23into today in inland North Carolina.
00:26And this is just one of the many roadways
00:27that have been flooded out.
00:28A few of the towns a little bit further
00:29to my east last night in Clarkton and Bladensboro
00:32were actually under a flash flood emergency
00:35and several vehicles were submerged
00:37and a lot of those businesses in town
00:39were actually inundated with about two feet of flood water.
00:42To tell you what we've been dealing with
00:43over the last 24 hours here.
00:48And Aaron, we had talked about before yesterday,
00:51we're talking about doing times of high tide.
00:53We were getting some coastal flooding in Myrtle Beach.
00:57Did you have to deal with that at all
00:58during the overnight hours?
00:59Still, there's a stiff wind from the southeast.
01:05So thankfully overnight wasn't too terribly bad.
01:08A lot of that stuff that we,
01:09the worst of what we saw was actually about 24 hours prior
01:12when a lot of that storm surge of upwards of two to four feet
01:15was combining with that flash flooding
01:17and it was preventing a lot of those streets,
01:19especially along the immediate beachfront from draining.
01:22So it led to a lot of issues
01:23and kind of off the rain and on the rain again
01:26has been really deceptive to people.
01:28So they kind of hunker in their shelter
01:30and then they come back out
01:31only to see the roadways flooded again
01:33and have to find their way back to the shelter.
01:34And that led to several stalled vehicles
01:36along Myrtle Beach as well.
01:38And Aaron, where are you going to head off to
01:40as we go through the rest of today?
01:41Are you going to follow the flooding
01:44or are you going to stay in the Myrtle Beach area?
01:47Today, my attention is going to shift
01:49toward the river flooding now.
01:50So this is kind of something that we've been talking about
01:53over the last couple of days with Debbie
01:54is that even though when it pushes off to the Northeast
01:56and it exits the Carolinas,
01:58that doesn't mean that the threat is over
01:59because this water has to go somewhere, right?
02:01And that's going to go to these rivers.
02:02That's going to lead to several of these
02:04getting into the major flood stage
02:05and that therefore can lead to a bunch of road closures.
02:08And unfortunately, some of those homes
02:09along the immediate riverfront
02:10could be inundated with floodwater.
02:12So we're going to be keeping an eye on that
02:13and tracking it along the way.
02:15All right, Aaron Rigsby joining us.
02:16Thanks for checking in
02:18and we'll continue to keep you updated
02:20from various spots around the field
02:22in our coverage throughout the day.