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Surfside Beach, South Carolina

14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1937 and the latest in 1990. It stands in the Myrtle Beach census division. It lies in ZIP code area 29575. The Survey maps it on the Surfside Beach quadrangle. 4,155 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 10 feet above sea level.

Surfside Beach within Horry County

Population over time

2 figures

Surfside Beach grew from 3,837 to 4,155 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
20103,837
20204,155+318 (+8%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 14 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

115 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 115 fires within 5 miles of Surfside Beach between 1992 and 2018, burning about 1,044 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 12 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined66
Debris and open burning20
Misuse of fire by a minor13
Arson/incendiarism12
Natural2
Equipment and vehicle use1
Recreation and ceremony1

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
8 September 2007Misuse of fire by a minor10 acresSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
11 September 2007Arson/incendiarism30 acresSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
30 August 1993Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
3 August 1998Debris and open burningunder an acreSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
27 August 1997Arson/incendiarism20 acresSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
26 August 1997Debris and open burning1.0 acresSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
19 August 2007Debris and open burning1.0 acresSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named
10 August 2002Arson/incendiarismunder an acreSouth Carolina Forestry Commissionnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Horry County

Storms near this place

13 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Surfside Beach in 13 storm reports between 1996 and 2007: 5 hail, 4 thunderstorm wind, 3 flash flood, 1 waterspout. The reports record 1 death. 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
March 2001Flash FloodSurfside Beach1 killed, $50,000A low pressure system caused heavy showers and wind gusts 30 to 50 mph that downed a few powerlines...but widespread rainwater flooding along the Grand Strand caused more serious problems. Radar rainfall estimates and local reports indicated 2-4 inches of rain in a couple of hours, and 6 inches to 2 feet of water flooded many roads and intersections. Police reported 30 roads were barricaded. A 7 year old boy drowned when he ventured into a flooded ditch along Sycamore Street near the entrance of Sea Gate Village.
August 1996Flash FloodSurfside Beach$200,000no account filed
June 1998HailSurfside Beach$50,000no account filed
August 2007Thunderstorm WindSurfside Beach$5,000Strong winds blew trees and power lines down. One large oak tree fell through a bedroom window of a home on Rutledge Lane in the Burgess community.
April 2006HailSurfside Beach-Golfball size hail was reported.
May 2005HailSurfside Beach-A trained spotter reported golfball size hail.
July 2002Thunderstorm WindSurfside Beach-Horry county 911 reported trees down.
August 1998Flash FloodSurfside Beach-Heavy rains measured 4 to 6 inches in 3 hours, causing widespread flooding of roadways. Water entered some homes.
May 1997HailSurfside Beach-Reported by Skywarn Spotter 4W of Surfside Beach
May 1998HailSurfside Beach-no account filed
June 1996Thunderstorm WindSurfside Beach-no account filed
June 1996WaterspoutSurfside Beach-no account filed
May 1996Thunderstorm WindSurfside Beach-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Horry 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
Caropine0.9 miles14
Surf Pines1.2 miles14
Oceanside Village1.2 miles14
Seacroft1.2 miles14
Longleaf1.3 miles14
Platt Spring1.4 miles14
Lakewood1.6 miles14
Ocean Lakes1.7 miles14

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 Surfside BeachAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q3240108The 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 1231847. 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.