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Hurricane Recovery

The most likely disaster to affect the South Carolina shoreline is the landfall of a hurricane, such as occurred with Hurricane Hugo on September 21, 1989. Damage and destruction to buildings, pools, seawalls and roads located within the coastal setback can be extensive. At the same time, the OCRM's ability to respond may be degraded due to damage to office facilities, equipment, vehicles and communications facilities. Emergency orders that cancel or modify normal coastal management procedures may be issued by the Governor or by SCDHEC. Many questions will be asked by local governments and citizens concerning necessary actions to protect and restore their property. The OCRM staff needs to be prepared to respond to this situation.

Be Prepared! DHEC Hurricane Preparedness Guide Hurricane Hugo makes landfall on the South Carolina Coast on September 21, 1989. (Photo: NOAA)

OCRM Severe Storm Priorities:

• Establish a functioning emergency operations office to direct the activities of the staff
• Establish and maintain communications with appropriate agencies and local governments
• Undertake a damage assessment of the impacted area
• Issue emergency orders as necessary
• Provide information and services to the state and local governments and the public

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Disaster Management As soon as safety allows, with a target of 24 hours, damage assessment teams will be dispatched to specific beachfront communities to conduct the initial damage assessments of all erosion control structures, buildings and pools located seaward of the setback area. Each team will be headed by an engineer with at least one member familiar with beach front permitting. The first stage of the assessment will involve deciding which structures are undamaged or well under the percentages required to qualify as destroyed beyond repair (DBR).

Hurricane Hugo caused extensive damage to the Ben Sawyer Bridge. (Photo: NOAA)

Undamaged and lightly damaged structures will be cleared with the local building officials to allow repairs to begin. All other structures will be tagged for a detailed structural assessment using standard procedures developed for this purpose. The damage assessment teams will begin the structural assessment after the initial evaluation has been completed.

Additional support staff with the technical data base will be available at a central location, most likely at the

Charleston office, to provide the field assessment teams with technical assistance and information, such as the name and address of damaged property owners, maps and aerial photography, historical profiles and answers to permitting and other questions. These staff members will also be responsible to compiling information collected by the field assessment teams and providing the information to the disaster management team. Alternates will be used as additional support for the inspection teams or to support the Office Assistance teams.

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Hurricane Recovery Plan

Following Hurricane Hugo in September 1989, the South Carolina Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM) staff was required to assess storm impact damage in beachfront areas in accordance with the provisions of the Beachfront Management Act. OCRM staff had to quickly decide if structures were "Destroyed Beyond Repair" (DBR). This process was severely hindered when field inspectors could not orient themselves on the pre-storm orthophotographs. In addition, OCRM did not have a record of existing structures before the storm, and lacked detailed cadastral information for beachfront parcels.

These problems caused delays in implementing the setback provisions and prevented property owners from making sound decisions regarding rebuilding damaged structures.

Since Hurricane Hugo, OCRM has developed a GIS database for the beachfront that includes a digital planimetric map of the beachfront, attributed digital cadastral point data, hard copy erosion control structure inventory, and photographs of all beachfront structures. The goal of the current project is to refine the existing post-storm recovery plan using this GIS database to better facilitate fast decisions and notification to the public on the condition of beachfront structures after a major storm. Several elements of the project will enhance the post-storm recovery process. These include digital-ortho basemaps, a digital photographic structure inventory, updated cadastral and erosion control inventory data linked to parcel maps, GPS data used as a graphically represented damage report, and templates for hard copy map production.