SENECA — The remnants of Hurricane Ida are expected to continue to bring more precipitation to Pickens and Oconee counties through today and tonight, but experts indicated on Tuesday that so far the area had dodged the worst of the system.

“We’ve not had any problems yet,” Oconee County Emergency Services Director Rodney Burdette said Tuesday. “Most of the really bad stuff has gone north of us so far, so that’s a great thing for us. We’re being optimistic that it will continue that pattern.”

Ida, which made landfall in Alabama, is still bringing heavy rains across the Southeast despite being downgraded to a non-tropical weather system, and drenched the northwestern corner of South Carolina with roughly an inch of rain.

“Generally speaking, it’s fair to say most of the area has seen about an inch. Specifically, Clemson has had about .87 of an inch. Walhalla is coming in with .94 of an inch so far,” said Harry Gerapetritis of the National Weather Service in Greenville.

Gerapetritis said the heaviest rain axis of the system is expected to hit north of the area, but several additional inches may mean that at the end of today, Oconee and Pickens could see between three and four inches from the storm.

“It’s beginning to look at this point as if the heaviest rain may fall to the east and to the north,” Gerapetritis said. “Rainfall totals there will be high, but it won’t be the heaviest rain in the system.”

Burdette said emergency service personnel continue to carefully monitor the forecasts and are optimistic that the weather models calling for the worst precipitation to spare the area will prove to be accurate. So far, there have not been any outages or downed trees to report, although there were at least two automobile accidents in Oconee County, one resulting in a man being sent to the hospital.

“We’re watching the system as it comes through,” Burdette said. “So far it’s been pretty quiet. We’ve not had any issues.”

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