We Buy Estate Jewelry in Charleston, SC

Meteorologist Ari Sarsalari explains why flooding from Idalia was so severe in Charleston, South Carolina.

Beyond The Storm

USA National Forecast

More News

Home Is Where The Heart Is

See More

Your Privacy

Please refer to the CPRA Notice in our Privacy Policy to learn about the types of data we collect and how we use and share it. We collect data from your device to personalize your weather and the ads you see.

Review Privacy and Advertising Settings

Tropical Storm Idalia moved into South Carolina on Wednesday night after making landfall along Florida's Gulf Coast as a powerful Category 3 hurricane earlier in the day. While the storm had weakened as it moved across Florida and through Georgia, entering South Carolina with maximum sustained wind speeds of around 60 mph, it was still bringing heavy flooding to the coast of the Palmetto State. It later moved on to North Carolina.

A storm surge warning was in effect for the Savannah River, on the border of Georgia and South Carolina, up north to the South Santee River in South Carolina, the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday night.

Along South Carolina's coast, North Myrtle Beach, Garden City, and Edisto Island all reported ocean water flowing over sand dunes and spilling onto beachfront streets Wednesday evening. In Charleston, storm surge from Idalia topped the seawall that protects the downtown, sending ankle-deep ocean water into the streets and neighborhoods where horse-drawn carriages pass million-dollar homes and the famous open-air market.

Emily Johnson of CBS affiliate WCSC-TV posted video of water coming over the seawall along the Battery, an area at the southern tip of the portion of Charelston that extends into the harbor.

Video posted to social media by Kathleen Culler showed two men walking through knee-deep water in what appeared to be a parking lot along the Ashley River.

Police in Isle of Palms, a small town on a barrier island to the east of Charleston, posted a video on social media showing "deep standing water" on one of the island's major roadways.

Preliminary data showed the Wednesday evening high tide reached just over 9.2 feet, more than 3 feet above normal and the fifth-highest reading in Charleston Harbor since records were first kept in 1899.

Idalia also spawned a tornado that briefly touched down in the Charleston, South Carolina, suburb of Goose Creek, the National Weather Service said. The winds sent a car flying and flipped it over, according to authorities and eyewitness video. Two people received minor injuries.

GOOSE CREEK, S.C. – Hurricane Idalia produced bands of storms across South Carolina’s Lowcountry on Wednesday, with at least one tornado north of Charleston causing damage.

First responders in Berkeley County reported only minor injuries when a car was apparently sideswiped by a quick twister.

A video showed tropical-storm-force winds in the region associated with the heavy rainfall when the tornado formed, lifting the vehicle and smashing it into another.

The tornado was one of several reports of waterspouts and funnel clouds in South Carolina but was the only incident where a touchdown happened as of Wednesday afternoon.

CHARLESTON SLAMMED WITH STORM SURGE AS IDALIA CONTINUES POUNDING SOUTHEAST

The National Weather Service office in Charleston will be tasked with surveying the damage and determining the rating of the twister on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

Hurricane Idalia produced at least one other tornado in Florida, but there was not any widespread damage reported associated with the vortex.

Tornadoes often happen during hurricanes

Tropical cyclones are known to produce tornadoes, especially in the northeast quadrant of the storm.

According to the FOX Forecast Center, shear is typically the greatest in this sector as the storm interacts with other weather features and the land. The tornadoes are usually weak and short-lived, which appears to be what happened in the Lowcountry.

IDALIA DIGS INLAND AS TROPICAL STORM, IMMERSING SOUTHEAST IN FLOODWATERS FOLLOWING HISTORIC FLORIDA LANDFALL

The threat of tornadoes, flooding and gusty winds is expected to continue through Thursday morning for the Carolinas as the center of Idalia pushes eastward off the coast.

Florida and Georgia were the hardest hit states by the former Category 4 hurricane. During the peak of the event, more than half a million customers in the two states were without electricity.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - With the sea level expected to rise 14 inches by 2050, the City of Charleston is formulating a plan to prevent catastrophic flooding on the peninsula.

The City of Charleston’s Chief Resilience Officer Dale Morris said the flooding the city experienced during Idalia could happen several times a month in 20 to 25 years.

“If we anticipate those kinds of events occurring three, four, five times a month in the future, we better do something about it now or we’re going to lose a large portion of the peninsula,” Morris said.

Morris said the city is working with the Army Corps of Engineers to build an elevated edge around the peninsula, stretching from Wagener Terrace to just North of the Ravenel Bridge.

He said it would be around the same height as the current High Battery, with a deck at around 10 feet of land elevation.

The projected cost of the project is $1.3 billion, but Morris said the Federal Government would cover around 65% of that.

“So, should we try to move forward with this project and see if we can make it work or do we just accept this as occurring?” Morris said. “We know what’s going to happen, we have to prepare for it because it takes so long.”

Right now, the city is negotiating a design agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers that’s expected to take an additional one to three months. From there, Morris said the agreement will go to the City Council and up the chain of command for the Army Corps of Engineers.

If all goes as planned, the city could start the design phase next spring. Morris said the first phase of design for the West side of the peninsula could take up to two years before heading back to City Council for approval.

It’s not only city officials that are concerned about the impacts of rising sea levels.

The General Manager of The Establishment on Broad Street, Brian Jarusik, said the flooding from Wednesday’s storm is not sustainable for the long term because of how badly it impacted business.

“I can firmly say something needs to be done in the positive, what that is, we defer to the experts on that one,” Jarusik said. “If this is something we’re going to see moving forward, we will be financially hit with that.”

It’s not only economic impacts that have residents concerned.

“This great history living on the water won’t be there to be appreciated in the future,” Brian Starks, a peninsula resident said.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.