By late July, everyone on the Grand Strand has half an eye on the tropics. Hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30, but the heart of it — the stretch that has historically brought our area its worst water — is late August through October. And you do not need a landfalling major hurricane to end up with a wet house: wind-driven rain from a passing storm's outer bands, a stalled tropical depression, or a king tide coinciding with onshore wind can put water where it has never been before.
Water readiness is different from general hurricane prep. Shutters and generators get all the attention; this checklist is about the water itself — keeping it out, knowing what it touched, and drying it fast when it gets in anyway.
This Week (While the Tropics Are Quiet)
- Find your shutoffs. Water main and electrical panel. In a condo, know which valves are yours and which belong to the HOA — and where the building's shutoff is documented.
- Walk the property with your phone. A ten-minute video of every room, closets open, plus the exterior, gives you a dated record of pre-storm condition. Store it in the cloud, not on the counter.
- Clear the water's exits. Gutters, downspouts, yard drains, and the weep holes on storm-facing windows. Most "mystery" wall leaks after a blow are just blocked drainage paths.
- Check the crawl space now. A huge share of Grand Strand homes stand on crawl-space foundations. If the vapor barrier is torn or the space already smells earthy, fix that before a storm makes it worse.
- Rental owners: name your checker. The costliest post-storm losses we see are units that sat closed up for two weeks with wet carpet inside. If you are out of state, arrange — in writing — who physically enters the unit after a storm and when.
- Save the numbers you will need: your insurance carrier and agent, your property manager or HOA, and a restoration company that answers around the clock.
When a Storm Is 48 Hours Out
- Move electronics, documents, and keepsakes up off the floor — ground level and garage first.
- Roll up area rugs and pin any floor-length fabric off the slab.
- Unplug what you reasonably can in low-lying rooms.
- Photograph the rooms one more time; thirty seconds per room is enough.
- If you evacuate, shut off the water main. A wind-cracked supply line that runs unattended for three days does more damage than most storms.
After the Storm: Re-Entry Rules
Safety first, and slowly:
- Treat every downed line as live, and never wade into a flooded room while the power is on.
- Run generators outdoors only, away from windows and the crawl-space vents.
- If a ceiling is sagging or bulging with trapped water, stay out from under it and call for help — do not poke it from below.
- Floodwater that rose from outside — surge, creek, or street flooding — carries silt, bacteria, and whatever the neighborhood contributed. It is handled as contaminated water, which changes what can be saved. Our flood damage page explains the difference.
Wind-Driven Rain vs. Rising Water: Why the Distinction Matters
The same wet carpet can have two very different stories behind it: rain forced in through the building envelope, or water that rose from below. They behave differently in the structure, they are cleaned up differently — and insurance policies commonly treat the two water paths differently as well. What your specific policy covers is a question for your carrier or agent. Our part is making the story unambiguous: when we open a hurricane loss, we document the entry path, the water category, and the spread with photos and moisture readings, so the record of what happened — and our itemized scope for our work — is clear.
Why the Clock Runs Faster Here
Inland, a wet wall might buy you a couple of days. On the coast in September — ambient humidity in the 70s, temperatures in the 80s — mold colonization risk climbs within 24 to 48 hours, and a closed-up beach house becomes an incubator. Salt-laden storm air adds a second problem, working on electronics and metal fixtures that got wet. This is why we tell neighbors: the call you make the day the storm clears matters more than almost anything you did before it.
After a named storm, every restoration company on the Strand is triaging calls at once. Calling early gets your loss assessed, tarped, and into the drying queue sooner — and a documented early assessment protects you even if drying starts a day later.
Where We Fit
Clean Sweep's crews are based in Murrells Inlet and work the Grand Strand year-round — hurricane and storm damage, water damage restoration, and the mold problems that follow both. Before the season peaks, take ten minutes with our hurricane preparation guide, and if you own a rental or seasonal property, ask us about a maintenance program visit before the busy stretch.
Storm water rewards preparation and punishes delay. Do the quiet-week checklist now, and keep our number where the storm can't blow it away.
