Hurricane Idalia

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Good afternoon Island residents,

Based on the 3:30PM conference call with Charleston County Emergency Management and the other state and municipal partners there has been little change to the information provided earlier. Below are a few highlights and updates of the discussion:

  1. Storm Position and Strength – At 2pm today Hurricane Idalia is located at 25.2N 84.9W or 130 miles WNW of the Dry Tortugas and approximately 519 miles SW of Sullivan’s Island. The category 1 storm has maximum sustained winds of 90 MPH with minimum central pressure of 28.76 inches. The storm is expected to intensify before making landfall on the west coast of Florida. After landfall, the storm will likely downgrade back to tropical storm level and travel north through Georgia and South Carolina. The tropical storm watch has been extended from the lower Florida Keys to Surf City, North Carolina (previously South Santee River in Charleston County).  A tropical storm watch means tropical storm conditions are possible within the watch area, generally within 48 hours.

The earliest that Sullivan’s Island should begin to experience storm conditions would be Wednesday 8-30-23 at 10am to Noon. The duration of the tropical storm conditions is currently expected to be between 6pm Wednesday to 2am Thursday.  There is high confidence for tidal flooding in low lying areas of Sullivan’s Island with a forecast flood slack water at 8.3 feet (2 ft of surge on top of the astronomical tide height). Rain fall is expected to be in the 1-inch to 3-inch range with most rain bands passing to the west of Charleston County.

Tide sequence for Wednesday and Thursday:

Wed 30th Low 1:38am -0.1ft

         30th High 7:8am   5.7ft

         30th Low 1:47pm -0.5ft

         30th High 8:32pm 6.7ft

Thu  31st Low 2:28am -0.4ft

         31st High 8:45am 6.0ft

         31st Low 2:42pm -0.6ft

         31st High 9:22pm 6.7ft

Sand bags are available at the Sullivan’s Island Fire Station. Sand is available at Quarter Street.

  1. Items for you to consider:
  • Continue to review your family hurricane plan.
  • Monitor local media outlets for the most current storm updates.
  • Secure all lawn and porch furniture and plants that could become projectiles in the wind.
  • Check your mooring lines.
  • At this time we anticipate household garbage to be collected today. You should secure your cart tonight.
  • At this time we anticipate yard debris collection to be conducted on Wednesday and the second household collection on Friday.
  • The bridges will remain open and passable but moving into Wednesday afternoon and evening road conditions will become hazardous.  Please consider not driving unless necessary.
  • Sullivan’s Island Elementary School will begin early dismissal at 10:20 Wednesday and Thursday will be an e-learning day.
  1. Other information:
  • The Town will move to OPCON 2 status Wednesday morning at 8am with the emergency operations staffed through 5pm.
  • Additional first responders will be on duty in addition to normal staffing and standing by at the ready to assist.  In the event of an emergency always dial 9-1-1. For non-emergency assistance contact Fire/Police/Water & Sewer through Charleston County Consolidated Dispatch at 843-743-7200.
  • Non-essential staff will be dismissed Wednesday at 2pm and will return to Town Hall, weather permitting at 10am Thursday.
  • Never approach a downed power line as it or the ground around it may be energized. Contact Dominion Energy at 1-888-333-4465 for power outages. View the Dominion Energy Outage Map at https://outagemap.dominionenergysc.com.
  • If you are leaving the Island overnight for the duration of the event, consider turning off your water supply at the customer shut off valve.