Photos by Julie Dermansky

On Wednesday, nearly two weeks after Hurricane Florence hit the Carolinas, the Waccamaw River at Conway, South Carolina, crested at just above 21 feet, setting a historic flood level. 

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The flooding beats previous records by more than three feet, the Myrtle Beach Online reported. The Waccamaw River's flood point is 11 feet. 

(MORE: Hurricane Florence Kills 48)

"The water has crested and so now we just have to take as much time for it to go down as it's taken to come up," Randy Webster, Horry County Emergency Management Director, said at a news conference Thursday, according to NBCNews.

Flooding is expected to begin to recede in the upcoming days, but won't drop below 19 feet until Monday. 

"We know that it will not get any worse in terms of flooding," Webster said. "But the beginning of the recovery is just starting."

As the Waccamaw crested, a Conway sewage plant lost power and flooded, likely releasing millions of gallons of raw sewage into the river on Wednesday, The Post and Courier reported. The plant was brought back online in less than 24 hours.

(MORE: Florence Likely Depositied Foreign Garbage on North Carolina Beaches)

Last week, President Trump visited the hardhit town before the flooding reached its worst. Horry County's most innundated neighborhoods include the Sherwood neighborhood, Star Bluff Road in Longs and Rosewood in Socastee. Residents of a neighborhood in Socastee built a 12-foot moat earlier this week in an effort to protect their homes.

On Friday morning, officials reopened the final closed stretch of N.C. 12 along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Some 1,500 people were still in shelters throughout the state as of Thursday.

Hurricane Florence has killed 48 people in the Carolinas and Virginia since making landfall on Friday, September 14. As waters recede, residents continue to deal with the aftermath, including mold, damaged and destroyed homes and a population explosion of an aggressive species of moquito, Psorophora ciliata, that has thrived in the standing floodwaters.

MORE FROM WEATHER.COM: Hurricane Florence in Photos