You hear of floods, streets collapsing, dams breaking, and think it only happens in the movies. However, USC and the surrounding Columbia areas are experiencing it first hand. Along with Charleston, our beautiful city of Columbia has experienced historic rainfall that has caused severe damage. The governor of S.C. has even called this the “thousand-year rainfall.”
While the USC campus has remained intact, water was shut off for quite a while. Even though the water has since been turned back on, it is still unsafe to drink without boiling it first. However, our wonderful university president, Harris Pastides, arranged to have over 100,000 water bottles distributed on campus so that students living in dorms would not go without water, along with many porta-potties. The dining crews even worked hard to be sure on-campus students had food in Honeycomb Cafe and Bates.
While the USC campus has been lucky, others in Columbia have not been as fortunate. Many houses, businesses, cars and streets are still under water. While the many firefighters, policemen, and the National Guard are helping, volunteers are needed. If you are a student and wish to help with relief efforts, there is a sign up form online: tinyurl.com/uscfloodvol
If you wish to donate money toward the relief, you can donate at the following sites:
United Way of the Midlands: https://www.uway.org/news/flood-disaster-relief-fund
The American Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org/local/sc
Together, we can work to help our neighbors who were not as fortunate and we can work to rebuild our beautiful city.