VIDEO: You could be living on top of a danger in South Carolina and not even realize it - something some Upstate families have learned the hard way.
Abandoned water wells - there’s a proper procedure for how they should be closed up, but officials say that isn’t always happening.
“They’re all over and sometimes they’re just covered up and kind of forgotten,” said Oconee County Emergency Management Director Scott Krein.
Experts believe there are more than 100,0000 water wells across the state. They don’t know how many of them have been abandoned without being properly sealed. Krein’s agency was called to a home on Park Avenue in Salem in November 2023. Dorothy Downey, 83, was helping her daughter pack up before a move.
When they tried to move the dining room table, rotting floorboards gave way and Downey plunged into a dark, 50-foot hole.