As sea levels continue to threaten to swallow large swathes of the Lowcountry over time, county leaders are looking for ways to future-proof their districts.
“We’re working on the climate action plan right now,” said County Councilman Larry Kobrovsky of Sullivan’s Island. “But by just changing our vehicles, we’re not going to change the world. We’re seeing the effects of rising tides and rising temperatures right now. Rather than spending all of our money on [Interstate] 526, I would rather be focusing on flooding.”
The six county council members who have consistently voted to expand Interstate 526 at a cost of $2.3 billion to county taxpayers — Chairman Herb Sass and council members Jenny Honeycutt, Brantley Moody, Joe Boykin, Kylon Middleton and Teddie Pryor — did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did councilman Henry Darby.
Maps drafted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 2021 predict what Charleston-area shores could look like with 1, 2, 3, 6 and 10 feet of water, using gradual sea level rise predictions for 2030, 2050 and 2100 and storm surge forecasts. The maps’ usage of six- and 10-foot predictions are based on the low end of major storms (severe storms like Hurricane Hugo can bring as high as 20-foot surges).
But the threat could be worse than expected. Charleston Chief Resilience Officer Dale Morris told the Charleston City Paper in a November 2023 report that much of the mapping could be out of date due to how quickly development is occurring in the Lowcountry. He also added sea level rise is getting worse faster than expected. The sea level, he said, has risen 13 inches in the last 100 years here. Seven of that 13 was in the last 30 years.
District 2 faces threat from development
Kobrovsky’s District 2, which covers a large tract of coastline along Mount Pleasant, is predicted to feel the heaviest impacts from storm surge, but some developed areas will begin to feel wet with only 1 foot of sea level rise, which is predicted to occur by 2030.
“Every district is different, and mine is right on the edge of the water,” said Kobrovsky, a Republican. “I can’t change what has already been built, but the most important thing we can do now is shy away from building anything new near the water.
“If I could zone additional coastline in my district, I would try to make it all off-limits,” he added. “We have some of the most pristine natural waters in the world, and I have the largest coastline of all the county districts. I wish we could make it all a state park and limit development as much as possible.”
Kobrovsky said it would take a lot of buy-in from leaders county-wide, as much of the issue stems from zoning and construction.
“This should be a county-wide effort,” he said. “Flooding affects all of our futures. And development over the years has already happened — we can’t change that — so we have to think ahead, not just reactively.”
District 3 may see the worst
County Councilman Robert Wehrman agrees that the area can only be protected by sea-level rise with a lot of cooperation from area leaders. He said it will take city, county, state and even federal buy-in to give residents the assurance they need.
Wehrman’s District 3 stretches from North Charleston to the peninsula and across the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge to Mount Pleasant.
“My district is more affected by some of the larger development patterns we see in Charleston,” he said. “On some levels, it’s a little more indirect, but focusing on other infrastructure projects like Lowcountry Rapid Transit and some of these other non-sprawl attempts at reversing these development patterns can help.
“It’s a problem that intersects with a lot of the policy decisions we make at the county level, certainly when it comes to transportation and developmental patterns,” he added. “But it’s also something that requires municipalities and state and federal governments to participate. It’s an all-hands-on-deck problem.”
He said there have been conversations with city and county leaders in search of creative solutions to the threat of sea level rise, including diverting funds from ongoing city projects to flood mitigation in areas of his district.
But one of the biggest challenges, he said, is time.
“Development patterns like what we’re seeing going on now — you can’t change it on a dime,” he said. “These are long-standing things, and it’s a big ship to turn. It takes a while to turn it. Sea level rise, of course, is something we don’t entirely have control over, but we do have control over how we interact with it and how we prepare for it. It’s not going to be easy to change the basic infrastructure of a city, a county, a region, within a five-year or even a 10-15-year time span.”
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