HORRY COUNTY -- The South Carolina Drought Response Committee has declared Marlboro, Dillon, Marion, Florence, Horry, Williamsburg, Georgetown, Berkeley and Charleston counties under incipient drought status.
The nine counties now join the rest of the state in the least severe drought stage. If the drought continues, the next stages to follow would be moderate, severe and extreme.
"The lack of rainfall coverage combined with the unseasonable hot weather has brought all counties into the first stage of drought," said state climatologist Hope Mizzell in a Department of Natural Resources press release.
NewsChannel 15's First Alert Chief Meteorologist Ed Piotrowski says most areas of the Pee Dee and Grand Strand received less than half the normal rainfall during the month of May. Many areas received only about 1.5 inches of rain, he said.
Despite the dry conditions, Grand Strand officials say Horry County is under no threat of having to conserve water and the drought would have to reach an extreme stage to cause a shortage.
Grand Strand Water and Sewer Authority CEO Fred Richardson said Horry County benefits from water flowing from the Upstate and North Carolina through the Waccamaw, Little Pee Dee and Great Pee Dee rivers.
"So the very bottom of the drainage basin is a big plus for us," he said.
The Great Pee Dee river, which originates in Virginia, supplies most of the area's water, Richardson said. He said the Grand Strand has far more than enough water to endure even the most severe dry spell.
"We're using about 65 million gallons a day, which even under the most extreme drought conditions, is approximately five percent of the water supply flowing through here in Horry County."
Richardson said the area has enough of a supply that the authority can divert water to underground aquifers for storage during the winter, so it can be tapped during the busier summer season.
"So we have about a billion gallons a day actually stored underground in our well system."
Richardson said the county has a drought response plan that calls for measures to encourage water conservation, if it ever got that far. But he points out that in 2002, during what was described at the time as a 50-year drought, the county didn't have a water supply problem.
"We never know how bad a drought could get, but the only thing we know is we've never reached a drought level where we would have an impact on water supply in the county."
Do you try to conserve water? Are you feeling the effects of the lack of water?
