Charleston's 2025 Flooding Report Card Shows Another Historically Bad Year
The city logged another year of record tidal flooding as officials race to complete drainage projects before conditions worsen further.
Charleston’s annual flooding report card has arrived, and the news is grimly familiar: 2025 marks another historically high year for tidal flooding events that inundate streets, strand vehicles, and disrupt daily life across the peninsula.
The data confirms what residents already know from lived experience. King tides now routinely push water onto Market Street and surrounding blocks. Rainstorms that once drained quickly now linger for hours as aging infrastructure struggles to move water against rising seas.
City officials have embarked on an ambitious, multi-billion-dollar effort to address chronic flooding through a combination of drainage improvements, seawalls, and pumping stations. The Church Street project and other major initiatives have shown localized results, but peninsula-wide solutions remain years away from completion.
The fundamental challenge grows more difficult with each passing year. Sea levels along the South Carolina coast continue rising, meaning that today’s high-tide flooding events become tomorrow’s routine conditions. Infrastructure designed for historic water levels simply cannot keep pace.
For businesses in flood-prone areas, the calculus grows increasingly difficult. Restaurants, shops, and offices must weigh the cost of flood-proofing measures against the reality that some locations may become untenable as conditions worsen.
Homeowners face similar choices. Flood insurance costs have risen sharply in recent years as federal programs recalculate risk, and some properties have seen policies jump from hundreds to thousands of dollars annually.
The city’s long-term planning documents acknowledge that not every flooding problem can be solved. Some low-lying areas may require managed retreat rather than engineering solutions, a politically difficult conversation that Charleston has only begun to have.
Meanwhile, development continues. New construction in flood-prone areas must meet elevated standards, but the legacy of buildings constructed before modern floodplain awareness remains the city’s most vexing challenge.