SC Severe Weather Week 2025: Is Your Stormwater System Ready?

South Carolina Severe Weather and Flood Safety Week runs March 2 through 8, 2025. Organized by the South Carolina Emergency Management Division (SCEMD), this annual awareness campaign exists for one reason: to get people thinking about flood risk before storm season, not during it.

That matters here more than most places. South Carolina has 21% of its housing units at risk of storm surge. The state’s Office of Resilience is managing 81 active flood mitigation projects across the coast and inland corridors. And we’re coming off a 2024 hurricane season that hit the Southeast hard, with Tropical Storm Debby dumping historic rainfall across the Lowcountry in August and Hurricane Helene causing widespread damage in September.

If you manage property in South Carolina, Severe Weather Week isn’t a public service announcement you scroll past. It’s a deadline. Hurricane season starts June 1. That gives you roughly 90 days to get your stormwater infrastructure inspected, repaired, and ready.

What 2024 Taught Us

The 2024 hurricane season was a reminder that stormwater systems don’t fail in isolation. They fail as part of a chain.

Tropical Storm Debby stalled over the Lowcountry and dropped over 10 inches of rain in 24 hours across parts of Beaufort County and Charleston County. Ponds that hadn’t been maintained overflowed. Outlet structures that were partially blocked by debris couldn’t handle the flow rate. Bank erosion that had been developing for years gave way under sustained water levels. Communities that thought their drainage was “fine” found out otherwise. Our full writeup is at Tropical Storm Debby: what the Lowcountry learned.

Hurricane Helene, though its strongest impacts hit further south and inland, pushed storm surge and heavy rain into coastal South Carolina communities that were still recovering from Debby. Back-to-back events don’t give you recovery time. They compound damage. We covered the recovery sequence in Hurricane Helene’s impact on South Carolina stormwater systems.

The properties that fared best in 2024 had one thing in common: they’d been maintaining their systems proactively. Ponds with available capacity absorbed the rainfall. Cleared outlet structures handled the flow. Stabilized banks held. Proactive maintenance doesn’t guarantee zero damage in a major event, but it dramatically reduces it.

Your Severe Weather Week Checklist

Use the first week of March as your trigger to get organized. Here’s what property managers and HOA boards should work through.

Inspect All Stormwater BMPs

If your last professional inspection was more than 12 months ago, you’re overdue. Walk every pond, detention basin, bioretention area, swale, and catch basin on your property. Better yet, have a stormwater professional do it.

What to look for:

• Sediment accumulation in ponds and forebays. If capacity is reduced by 25% or more, schedule removal before hurricane season.
• Outlet structures: check for cracked risers, missing trash racks, blocked barrel pipes, and corroded metal components.
• Bank erosion: document any slope failures, exposed soil, undermined structures, or scour at pipe outfalls.
• Inlet grates and catch basins: clear debris, check for structural damage, confirm proper function.

Document everything with dated photos. This baseline is your reference point if storm damage occurs later in the year, and it’s the documentation your insurance carrier will want to see.

Review Your Maintenance Agreement

Every stormwater system on your property is governed by a maintenance agreement recorded with your local jurisdiction. That agreement specifies what you’re required to maintain, how often you need to inspect, and what happens if you don’t.

Pull that document out. Read it. Make sure your current maintenance program actually meets the requirements. If your agreement requires annual inspections and you haven’t had one, you’re already out of compliance, and an NOV can be issued whether a storm hits or not. Our post on what happens when you ignore a stormwater violation notice covers where that goes from there.

If you can’t find your maintenance agreement, contact your local stormwater department. In Beaufort County, Jasper County, Hilton Head, and the Town of Bluffton, these documents are typically recorded with the county and available on request.

Update Emergency Contacts

Before a storm hits, know who you’re going to call after it passes. Build a short list:

• Stormwater contractor who can respond for emergency repair work within 48 hours of a storm.
• Engineering firm that has your site plans and can evaluate structural damage.
• Insurance agent who handles your property coverage and can initiate a claim quickly.
• Local stormwater department contact for reporting damage or requesting emergency permits.

Don’t wait until you’re standing in front of a failed embankment in the rain trying to find a phone number.

Check Insurance Coverage

This is the one people skip and regret later. Review your property insurance policy for stormwater infrastructure coverage. Many standard commercial and HOA policies exclude or limit coverage for:

• Earthen embankments and pond structures
• Pipe infrastructure below grade
• Sediment removal after storm events
• Erosion damage to common areas

If your stormwater system isn’t explicitly covered, talk to your agent now. Supplemental coverage or endorsements for stormwater infrastructure damage may be available. The cost of additional coverage is a fraction of an uninsured repair bill.

Schedule Annual BMP Inspections

If you haven’t already, use Severe Weather Week as your annual trigger to schedule professional inspections. March is ideal timing. You get inspection results back before spring rains intensify, and well before hurricane season. Any deficiencies found can be addressed in the spring maintenance window.

For properties in the Lowcountry, this means scheduling inspections now for completion in March or early April. Wait until May and you’re competing with every other property manager who put it off.

The 90-Day Window

From Severe Weather Week to June 1, you’ve roughly 90 days. That’s enough time to inspect, bid, and complete most maintenance and repair projects. But it’s not enough time if you wait until April to start.

Here’s a realistic timeline:

Week 1-2 (Early March): Schedule and complete professional inspections.

Week 3-4 (Mid-March): Receive inspection reports. Prioritize findings by risk level.

Week 5-8 (April): Get contractor bids for repair work. Award contracts.

Week 9-12 (May): Complete repairs. Verify work against inspection findings. Update documentation.

June 1: Hurricane season begins. Your system is inspected, maintained, and documented. From there, work our hurricane season stormwater prep checklist, which covers the before, during, and after phases of an actual storm.

That timeline works if you start now. If you start in May, you’ll be trying to squeeze inspections, bidding, and construction into a 30-day window while contractors are already booked.

Connecting the Dots: Maintenance Prevents Emergency Costs

SCEMD’s Severe Weather Week message focuses on awareness and preparedness. For property managers, the stormwater version of that message is simple: the money you spend on maintenance before a storm is a fraction of what you’ll spend on repairs after one.

Emergency stormwater repairs after a hurricane routinely cost 3 to 5 times what planned maintenance would have cost. A $5,000 bank stabilization done in April becomes a $25,000 emergency repair in August. A $2,000 outlet structure cleaning done proactively becomes a $40,000 pond failure when the structure is blocked during a major event.

The SC Office of Resilience’s 81 active flood mitigation projects exist because communities across the state learned this lesson the hard way. You don’t have to.

Beyond Your Property Line

Severe Weather Week is also a good time to think about your stormwater system in context. Your ponds and drainage don’t exist in isolation. They connect to a larger storm drainage network that includes your neighbors’ systems, municipal infrastructure, and natural waterways.

If upstream development has increased runoff into your system, your ponds may be handling more volume than they were designed for. If downstream conditions have changed (new development, channel modifications, sea level rise), your outfall may not perform as expected during a major event.

Understanding these connections helps you anticipate problems and communicate effectively with your local municipality about shared infrastructure concerns.

AUE Land Can Help

Severe Weather Week is the signal to act, not just be aware. If your stormwater system hasn’t been professionally inspected this year, AUE Land can get you an assessment and action plan before hurricane season begins. We work with property managers and HOA communities across the Lowcountry and Southeast. Request your site assessment today.