Hurricanes and flooding
in Myrtle Beach.

The short answer

Myrtle Beach can have hurricanes

Start with the comparison, because it is the fairest way to frame the risk. Of the five states hurricanes hit most, South Carolina is hit the least. Since 1851 the federal count of direct hurricane hits is 120 for Florida, 64 for Texas, 56 for North Carolina and 54 for Louisiana, against 30 here. The last major hurricane to come ashore on this coast was Hugo, in 1989.

We are not going to tell you hurricanes are not a thing here, because they are, and we are not going to tell you they are constant, because the record says otherwise. Since 1989, eight tropical systems have done real damage on the Grand Strand. Most seasons pass without a direct hit. Every damaging storm in that record arrived between August and early October.

The Atlantic season runs June 1 to November 30. Government climatology puts the peak at September 10, with most activity between mid August and mid October. What follows is each storm and what it actually did here, from National Weather Service storm reports, so you can judge the risk from facts instead of from a brochure in either direction.

The record

Every damaging storm since 1989, and what it did here

Each row is from the National Weather Service Wilmington office's report on that storm. Categories are at landfall. Dorian and Florence made landfall elsewhere; their damage here came from rain, surf and tornadoes.

Hugo, first person

Timmy was here for Hugo. This is what he remembers.

Timmy Fredrick Nash, our Broker-in-Charge, has sold real estate on this coast for more than 30 years. In September 1989 he was here as Hugo came in. This is his recollection, as he told it to us.

His family left for Augusta, Georgia, around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, about five hours ahead of the outer bands. The eye came ashore near Charleston about midnight, and the north side of the eye, the worst side, went over McClellanville, about fifty miles south of here. They waited the storm out in a hotel and started back at checkout time.

At the Socastee bridge the traffic was stopped: the National Guard was turning returning residents around. His father worked in emergency medical services, so the family was let through. At the house, power, water and telephone were all out. His father had filled the bathtubs and two 50 gallon barrels in the yard before they evacuated. Power stayed out for about two weeks, and the family collected drinking water at town hall each day for about as long.

His father let him take his dirt bike up the beach to check on his grandmother's house, five miles north, oceanfront on the south end of Myrtle Beach. Pieces of houses and piers were strung down the length of the beach, with dead fish everywhere. Her house stood. Flood water had filled it and drained back out, and campers sat in piles in her front yard. The National Guard sent him home.

The record backs his memory of the geography. Weather service reports put Hugo's landfall winds near 140 miles an hour at midnight on September 22, storm surge up to 20 feet near Cape Romain and 16 feet at McClellanville, where six feet of seawater entered the school gymnasium, against gusts of about 76 miles an hour at Myrtle Beach. In his words: We were lucky. One shift north of 50 miles and nothing would have been left here.

The fact buyers miss

Where storm water actually went: inland, days later

People shopping from out of state usually picture hurricane risk as an oceanfront problem. The last decade here says something different. Florence made landfall in North Carolina in September 2018, and the wind on the Grand Strand stayed below hurricane strength. The damage came from rain. It kept falling for days, and the Waccamaw River rose for almost two weeks, reaching a record 21.16 feet at Conway on September 26. Weather service records count about 1,000 flooded homes and businesses near the river, severe flooding along the Intracoastal Waterway in Socastee, and 1,580 more damaged homes in rural parts of the county. Two years earlier, Matthew had pushed the same river to what was then its record.

So the question that matters when you buy is not how close the ocean is. A house two blocks from the beach on high ground and a house twelve miles inland beside the river carry different risks, and neither one is obvious from the photos of the home.

That is what the maps are for. Every address has a FEMA flood zone, and the insurance page explains why the zone named X still does not mean zero risk. Every address also has a county evacuation zone, covered next.

After the rain

Streets here drain fast, and there is a reason

Devin, who wrote this page, remembers noticing it during Tropical Storm Debby: days of rain, a few inches of water standing on some streets, driving slow but possible, and then the main roads dry almost as soon as the rain stopped. He moved here from Ohio and expected the water to sit. On the main roads, it did not.

Part of the reason is built and paid for. Myrtle Beach has spent close to $75 million on four deepwater ocean outfalls, large underground pipes that collect street runoff and carry it more than 1,000 feet offshore, past the breakers, instead of letting it stand in town or pour across the sand. North Myrtle Beach has built six of its own since 2002 and states the purpose plainly: better inland drainage keeps streets and properties dry, and moving the discharge offshore keeps bacteria out of the surf where people swim. More outfalls are planned in both cities.

When heavy rain lands on a very high tide, the drains have nowhere to send the water for a few hours, and the lowest streets in places like Cherry Grove and Garden City hold water until the tide drops. And river flooding is the opposite of street flooding: near the Waccamaw and the Intracoastal, water rises over days and stays, which is the section above this one. Fast-draining streets are a beach-town fact, not a county-wide one.

No storm required

King tides, and the few low streets they reach

A king tide is the informal name for the highest tides of the year. They arrive on predictable dates, mostly around fall full moons, with no storm attached. On those days salt water can come up through the storm drains on the lowest streets until the tide turns.

Pawleys Island is the local example. On the biggest tides the island's low streets flood, the causeways have been closed at the peak until the water dropped, and the town says so itself: officials call flooding their first public safety issue, and the island is funding a drainage and flood plan. People who live there check the dates and plan around them. If you are shopping on Pawleys, the tide calendar comes with the island; ask us and we will time a showing to a high tide so you see the street at its worst before you offer.

Cherry Grove and the lowest streets of Garden City see the same tides.

From our team

What we actually do when a warning goes up

For a tropical storm or a low-end hurricane, our team stays home and waits it out. Many houses here have window protectors that fold down over the glass in a few minutes, and you will see the mounts beside the windows when you tour. Debby in 2024 was that kind of storm for us: days of rain and flooded rivers rather than destructive wind on the beach.

During one stronger storm, someone we know boarded up his house and took his family to sleep at his office for the night, because the building is newer commercial construction and he trusted it more than his house. Calm and specific. Water, fuel, the shutters down, and a decision made early about staying or going.

When the county orders an evacuation for your zone, you go. That is what the lettered zones below are for, and the county announces orders zone by zone on its own channels. What we do is our experience, not safety instruction; the county's emergency division decides.

Before you buy

Three things to check on any address, before you fall for the house

The flood zone

Look the address up on the federal flood maps. The zone decides whether a lender requires flood insurance and is the single best public clue to where water has gone before. We pull it for every address our buyers consider.

The evacuation zone

Horry County uses lettered evacuation zones, A, B and C, and the state orders evacuations by zone. The Know Your Zone map shows any address in seconds. Knowing your letter before a storm is the difference between following one clear instruction and refreshing the news.

Insurance can pause while a storm approaches

An insurance company may place a moratorium on issuing new policies in an area where a hurricane is expected. That pause matters most when you are under contract: the loan cannot close without a bound policy, so a buyer who leaves insurance to the week of closing can end up waiting out a storm instead. Bind the policy early in the process, and we get estimates on the exact address as part of any offer we write. A storm plan you made in February beats one you make in September.

Common questions

Myrtle Beach hurricane FAQ

Sources: NWS Wilmington storm reports, National Hurricane Center season climatology, SC Know Your Zone, FEMA flood maps, Horry County Emergency Management, City of Myrtle Beach on its ocean outfalls, North Myrtle Beach outfall program, NOAA on king tides, NOAA direct hurricane hits by state. Figures are as published in each storm report. We are not insurers or engineers; past storms do not predict future ones in either direction.