Tropical Storm Andrea to Bring Heavy Rains to SC

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — “We’ve already had a lot of severe weather moving through the state with heavy winds, heavy rain, even four confirmed tornadoes and now we have our first named storm of the season with Tropical Storm Andrea,” says Derrec Becker, Spokesperson for the South Carolina Emergency Management Division. Thursday afternoon, while Andrea remained hundreds of miles away in Florida, sand bags were already out on the streets of Columbia’s Five Points. The area is known to flood during heavy rain and that is exactly waht we will see over the next few days. “With the soils being so saturated right now, a lot of that rainfall is going to run off and we might see flooding in low lying areas,” Susan Cutter, University of South Carolina Professor Cutter has worked in hazard repsonse for more than twenty-five years and she says now is the time to prepare. “We shouldn’t see this particular tropical storm as a one off event, what we need to do is to increase our resilience as inviduals and as communities so that we’re always prepared for the unexpected,” says Cutter So from sandbags to planning, residents as far inland as the Midlands are preparing for Tropical Storm Andrea. “Anytime a tropical system forms and could potentially affect South Carolina, one of the first things we do is we make sure everybody has the same information and as much information as possible about the developing storm,” says Becker South Carolina Emergency Management Division spokesperson Derrec Becker says the agency has been in contact with each county in the state to make sure everyone is ready.