COLUMBIA, S.C. — Wednesday, October 4, 2023, marked the 8-year anniversary of the historic 2015 flood, when more than 20 inches of rain inundated parts of the Midlands.
The flood destroyed many homes and businesses and caused the Columbia Canal to breach.
Now, businesses and the City of Columbia are looking back on what happened and what's ahead.
“We we’re flabbergasted," President of Forest Lake Fabrics Michael Marsha said. "The force of water is remarkable.”
Marsha remembers the 2015 flood like it was yesterday, as water washed out his business.
“There was fabric all out in the woods, across the street. It was a wicked scene,” Marsha said.
Forest Lake Fabrics says they lost $1 million in inventory.
When it comes to the larger community, the flooding caused an embankment breach at the Columbia Canal, which threatened the drinking supply for thousands of Columbia residents.
In 2015, people lined up for bottles of drinking water offered to those impacted.
Eight years later, Assistant City Manager Clint Shealy says the City of Columbia is continuing work on the Columbia Canal through three projects.
“So, the first project is replacing the head gates. So, up at the entrance of the canal, the head gates during the flood became lodged with debris, so we were unable to close those gates to limit flow coming into the canal. We were unable to do that with the technology we had at that time,” Shealy said.
That design is complete and, in a few months will be out for bid.
Then comes project two – embankment recovery project.
“This project is scoped to repair that breach and also repair any damage along the tow of our embankment upstream,” Shealy said.
Last will be to have an alternative water supply.
Now, the City of Columbia, residents in the surrounding communities, and businesses like Forest Lake Fabrics are moving forward and hoping nothing like the 2015 flood ever happens again.
“To not only restore our water supply to as good were in October 2015 but to make it better and more resilient than 2015,” Shealy said.
The City of Columbia expects all projects on the canal will be done near the end of 2026.