Was it truly a “thousand-year storm”?

Huge volumes of water blasted through South Carolina cities and suburbs, breached dams and washed out bridges in October.  The rainfall conjured up the description of a “one-thousand year storm.”  But a water specialist at Clemson suggests that we’ve played foot-loose with the term thousand-year storm.  Associate professor Cal Sawyer believes it would be a mistake to write off the October storm as a meteorological fluke that won’t happen again for another thousand years.  Yet, from October 1-5, according to estimates, six trillion gallons of water fell on South Carolina.  Power went out.  Dams breached.  Highways shut down.  Roads crumbled.  Bridges collapsed.  And damage to crops cost South Carolina beleaguered farmers lots of money.