On October 4, 2015, the skies opened up and dropped 11 trillion gallons of rain across the Carolinas, just a month after 35 of the state’s 46 counties were declared primary disaster areas due to drought. Hurricane Joaquin may have never made landfall, but the weather system it created dumped massive amounts of rainfall over the Southeast, and no state was hit harder than South Carolina.
In the midst of it all were the agents and resources of the Clemson Extension service, fielding calls about flood assistance, safety and drinking water, as well as providing information and help on everything from how to file a claim for lost crops and livestock to how to recover farm equipment stuck in the mud.
The timeline below tells the story of the double whammy of drought followed by flood that hit the state’s agriculture industry.