Newer South Carolina Housing Developments Hit Hardest by Hurricane Joaquin
Residents of South Carolina are still trying to pick up the pieces from recent storms and flooding, but newer homes in the state seem to have taken the brunt of the damage.
According to Newsweek, older buildings in the historic corridor of Charleston remained relatively unscathed throughout the devastation of Hurricane Joaquin because they were built to stand on higher ground.
However, newer housing developments were not as fortunate, absorbing much of the flood damage throughout the state due to being situated on lower ground.
“The architecture [of Charleston] responds to its environment,” said Winslow Hastie, chief preservation officer for the Historic Charleston Foundation. “Because flooding isn’t a new thing to the city, many of the old buildings are without any apparent catastrophic damage.”
Many of the latest developments are built upon “made land” in the suburbs, which means they were constructed on old creek beds and filled-in marshes. These new homes were the ones most devastated by the flooding.
Joseph Snyder, a junior at the College of Charleston, notes that it wasn’t just his city that fell victim to major flood damage from the storm, and no one was safe from its wrath.
“It wasn’t just Goose Creek, Charleston, bits of Summerville,” said Snyder. “It was the whole state.”
A few newer housing developments, including ones in Beaufort County, were spared from extensive flood damage, but they are still standing strong with their fellow South Carolinians during these trying times.
According to The Washington Post, the cities of Charleston and Columbia both set two- and three-day records for total rainfall during the storm. The state’s torrential rainfall is considered to be a “once in 1,000 year” event.
In the aftermath of the storm, South Carolina residents are just trying to regain a sense of normalcy. Hastie tends to think that a slight change of the weather would do a lot of good for those affected.
“We just need some sun,” he said. “I think everybody’s kind of just ready for the water to recede.”
