Socastee Bridge area speed restrictions

Passed through the area yesterday and this morning. They're still in flood stage There is a no wake / no ripple speed restriction from Barefoot marina to Bucksport marina that is vigorously being enforced by numerous legal entities. While the restriction says no wake, the enforcement is no waves as the water is literally going against and into people's homes. Please transit the area extremely slowly. Whole situation is very sad. Will post pictures as bandwidth allows.

Ted

Ted

That's going to be hard for a lot of boats to do. Some boats at dead idle pull some wake. Mine at dead idle of 550rpm is 4.3kts and there is some wake. Would have to constantly bump in and out of gear.

I imagine once you get into the Waccamaw there will probably be a good bit of flow. Hopefully not too much debris as this river is really just a huge swamp drain, but be careful.

If you time your entry into the Waccamaw a few hours after the Winyah Bay high tide, you can ride the ebb all the way to G-town. With the flood conditions, that's going to be a few free kts.

LEOs aren't going to be sympathetic to a boater's inability to go slow enough. These are the people who pay their salaries and are their neighbors. Best to time your arrival at the Socastee bridge with low tide to reduce impact.

Ted

We have friends who live on the ICW Just north of the Socastee Bridge so it's a bit personal for us. Their house is raised and so far the water hasn't entered their house but it's several feet deep under it and in the workshop under the house. They've had to move their vehicles to higher ground and walk back.


The whole thing was making the wife sick so they took their motorhome and left.


Yes, wakes can do a lot of damage to people's property. There homeowners don't care about your inability to not make a wake, they are concerned about their property. We're not talking about docks here, we're talking about living rooms and kitchens.

I wasn't trying to minimize the peril these folks are suffering through, that was not my intent.

Amazing how slow it is for the water to recede. The rain event was over two weeks ago.

What's really amazing is that they had a similar flood one year ago and it was classified as a "thousand year flood".


The "Low Country" is "low". Just a few feet above sea level. When it rains, the water has no place to go. And the water from higher levels has to pass through the low levels on its way to the ocean.

There are some real problems in eastern NC and SC that have really been highlighted the last two years. Last year, Columbia, SC was hit hard. It's not coastal. This year Tarboro and Kinston, NC. Not coastal either. The rivers just are not well managed for major rain. The Tar River was rising well after the storm. It had briefly dropped, then was rising from upstream water. Waccamaw topped the record crest of 1928.

I've seen one city in the Delta of Mississippi that had floods and passed a no-wake ordinance for cars and it's streets. People were driving around looking and creating just enough wave to wash into the homes.

I feel so for all the people affected.

Oh that is terribly sad. My heart goes out to them all.