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Laurel Bay, South Carolina

15 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1920 and the latest in 1978. It stands in the Beaufort-Port Royal census division. It lies in ZIP code area 29906. The Survey maps it on the Laurel Bay quadrangle. 5,082 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 36 feet above sea level.

Laurel Bay within Beaufort County

Population over time

2 figures

Laurel Bay fell from 5,891 to 5,082 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
20105,891
20205,082-809 (-14%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 15 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

Fires near this place

156 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 156 fires within 5 miles of Laurel Bay between 1992 and 2020, burning about 575 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 30 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Debris and open burning58
Missing data/not specified/undetermined47
Arson/incendiarism30
Misuse of fire by a minor15
Equipment and vehicle use2
Power generation/transmission/distribution2
Natural1
Fireworks1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
17 September 2003Debris and open burningunder an acreSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
13 September 1999Arson/incendiarism1.0 acresSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
6 August 1993Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
6 August 1993Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
14 August 2000Debris and open burning1.0 acresSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
4 July 2008Arson/incendiarismunder an acreSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
3 July 1996Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
29 July 2006Debris and open burning1.0 acresSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Beaufort County

Storms near this place

4 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Laurel Bay in 4 storm reports between 2006 and 2024: 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
December 2012Thunderstorm WindLaurel Bay$5,000The Beaufort Gazette Newspaper reported a few trees down and damage to a home in Laurel Bay.
June 2024Thunderstorm WindLaurel Bay-Beaufort County Emergency Management reported a tree down near the intersections of Joe Frazier Road and Laurel Bay Road, Robert Smalls Parkway and Parris Island Gateway, Agnes Major Road and Cuthbert Farm Road, and a tree down on Young Circle.
May 2015Thunderstorm WindLaurel Bay-One tree blown down on Rugrack Road about a quarter of a mile from Highway 116.
June 2006Tornado (F0)Laurel Bay-Emergency Manager reports brief touchdown with no damage.

Every storm recorded in Beaufort County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Irongate0.7 miles15
Capehart Housing Project1.0 miles15
Pinewood1.1 miles15
White Oaks2.2 miles15
Peace Haven2.3 miles19
Roseida2.5 miles19
Broad River Bluff2.6 miles15
Colonial Heights2.8 miles19

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on Laurel BayAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1810605The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1227789. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.