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.
Population over time
2 figuresSurfside 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 3,837 | |
| 2020 | 4,155 | +318 (+8%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
9 surveys from 14 printed sheetsMatched 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.
- 1937 USGS Myrtle Beach quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1937 USGS Myrtle Beach quadrangle1:48000
- 1940 USGS Myrtle Beach quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
- 1949 USGS Georgetown quadrangle1:250000
- 1967 USGS Georgetown quadrangle1:250000
- 1974 USGS Georgetown quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1984 USGS Surfside Beach quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1986 USGS Myrtle Beach quadrangle1:100000
- 1990 USGS Myrtle Beach quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
115 since 1992Regional 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/undetermined | 66 |
| Debris and open burning | 20 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 13 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 12 |
| Natural | 2 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 1 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 September 2007 | Misuse of fire by a minor | 10 acres | South Carolina Forestry Commission | not named |
| 11 September 2007 | Arson/incendiarism | 30 acres | South Carolina Forestry Commission | not named |
| 30 August 1993 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | South Carolina Forestry Commission | not named |
| 3 August 1998 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | South Carolina Forestry Commission | not named |
| 27 August 1997 | Arson/incendiarism | 20 acres | South Carolina Forestry Commission | not named |
| 26 August 1997 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | South Carolina Forestry Commission | not named |
| 19 August 2007 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | South Carolina Forestry Commission | not named |
| 10 August 2002 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | South Carolina Forestry Commission | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
13 since 1996Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 2001 | Flash Flood | Surfside Beach | 1 killed, $50,000 | A 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 1996 | Flash Flood | Surfside Beach | $200,000 | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Hail | Surfside Beach | $50,000 | no account filed |
| August 2007 | Thunderstorm Wind | Surfside Beach | $5,000 | Strong 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 2006 | Hail | Surfside Beach | - | Golfball size hail was reported. |
| May 2005 | Hail | Surfside Beach | - | A trained spotter reported golfball size hail. |
| July 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Surfside Beach | - | Horry county 911 reported trees down. |
| August 1998 | Flash Flood | Surfside Beach | - | Heavy rains measured 4 to 6 inches in 3 hours, causing widespread flooding of roadways. Water entered some homes. |
| May 1997 | Hail | Surfside Beach | - | Reported by Skywarn Spotter 4W of Surfside Beach |
| May 1998 | Hail | Surfside Beach | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Surfside Beach | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Waterspout | Surfside Beach | - | no account filed |
| May 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Surfside Beach | - | no account filed |
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 | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caropine | 0.9 miles | 14 | |
| Surf Pines | 1.2 miles | 14 | |
| Oceanside Village | 1.2 miles | 14 | |
| Seacroft | 1.2 miles | 14 | |
| Longleaf | 1.3 miles | 14 | |
| Platt Spring | 1.4 miles | 14 | |
| Lakewood | 1.6 miles | 14 | |
| Ocean Lakes | 1.7 miles | 14 |
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 Beach | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q3240108 | The 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.








