Scratch and Dent Appliances in Folly Beach, SC

FOLLY BEACH, S.C. (WCSC) — Folly Beach is turning to artificial intelligence to get a closer look at how its shoreline changes over time, but the city needs some homeowners to provide the vantage points.

The city contracted with Surfline Coastal Intelligence for $76,500 earlier this summer to use artificial intelligence cameras to document erosion patterns and wave activity along the shoreline.

City officials say cameras installed at beach access points and piers alone will not provide enough data. They are now asking some Front Beach homeowners to allow cameras to be installed on their properties.

The city and Surfline are considering select locations stretching from Folly Beach County Park to Summers Place Lane.

The cameras will provide live monitoring of the beach following storms and other major weather events, potentially reducing the need for post-storm surveys typically conducted by the city’s contracted coastal engineer.

The technology also would allow the city to track changes to the shoreline in real time, including the health of the beach and sand dunes and how much sand is gained or lost each day.

“It’s going to be really beneficial to us, especially for post-storm analysis and end-of-year kind of look at how our beaches are doing, especially after renourishment,” Mayor Chris Bizzell said.

Bizzell said the technology also could speed up the process of documenting storm damage when the city seeks state and federal assistance.

“Every year if we have a storm, we have to do a post-storm analysis so that we can apply for federal and state aid,” Bizzell said. “We can do a post-storm analysis using this camera data in one day. Additionally, we can also turn this around very quickly to give people in Columbia a return on investment for their resilience grants and so forth.”

There is also a tourism component. City officials say the cameras could count the number of people on the beach at a given time, helping the city quantify the economic impact of its beach investments.

“The benefit really is so we have real-time monitoring of the beach health, the sand dunes, accretion, how much sand we’re losing and gaining each day,” Bizzell said. “But there’s also a tourism component there where we can count the number of people on the beach at any given time. So, at the end of the day we can go back to Columbia and say, ‘Here’s where your investment in the beach is pays off in tourism dollars.’”

Hosting a camera would come at no additional cost to homeowners. Surfline will reimburse property owners for electricity costs at their request.

“They get paid each month for the electricity and so forth,” Bizzell said. “So, it’s a kind of low entry point for the homeowner and it does help the city significantly. But again, it’s all voluntary.”

The city has contacted 10 homeowners about hosting the cameras. Three have agreed, three have declined and four have not responded.

Homeowners who agree would enter into a three-year contract with Surfline and give the company access to their properties for installation and occasional maintenance.

Bizzell said participation is voluntary and Surfline would handle the logistics of installing and maintaining the cameras.

These cameras differ from artificial intelligence license plate reader systems, such as Flock, which have raised privacy concerns in other communities. Bizzell said the key difference is that Surfline cameras are low-resolution and cannot identify people’s faces.

“These cameras are very low resolution. They can’t identify a face. It’s basically shapes,” Bizzell said. “So, when they make an identification on the beach, it’s more or less there’s a person on the beach or there’s a person in the water. It doesn’t have any identifying data associated with that.”

Bizzell said the goal is to monitor the beach rather than individual people.

“There’s no privacy concerns here because we’re not monitoring the individual; we’re monitoring the beach,” Bizzell said. “Most of this is about making sure that the beach information is as easy to assemble so that we can provide that information to all the decision makers that are managing our renourishment programs, our aid after a storm, those types of things. So, it does benefit everyone if we have those numbers in front of us.”

FOLLY BEACH, S.C. (WCSC) — Folly Beach is taking a new approach to protecting its marshes from erosion as the city prepares to install its first model living shoreline Friday at Folly River Park.

The project will use natural materials to create a more protected edge between the Folly River and the marsh, while giving residents a chance to see how a similar approach could work along their waterfront property.

The living shoreline is part of the city’s broader effort to prepare for rising sea levels. The project has been in the works since 2024 and is included in the Folly Beach 2050 plan, which outlines long-term strategies for building resilience.

Folly River Park was selected partially because of the conditions along the shoreline. The park sits next to the Folly River, where tidal movement and boat traffic create significant wave energy along the marsh edge.

Kim Morganello, ecological design leader with Weston and Sampson, says the living shoreline will help buffer that energy.

“The Folly River has a lot of energy as the tide comes and goes, and there’s also a lot of boat traffic with the boat ramp right next to the park,” Morganello says. “This living shoreline is going to create a more protected edge between the Folly River and the marsh.”

The installation is a partnership between the City of Folly Beach, Weston & Sampson and Shoreline Restoration Group. Crews will use three approaches: oyster castles, bagged oyster shells and manufactured wire reefs.

The shoreline is designed to reduce erosion, soften wave energy, improve water quality and provide habitat for fish, shellfish and shorebirds.

Oysters will play a major role in the project. Morganello says the shellfish can help stabilize the shoreline while also creating habitat and filtering water.

“Oysters should really be the Lowcountry mascot,” Morganello says. “They’re heavy lifters, creating habitat for fish and other aquatic species, stabilizing the shoreline, protecting the marsh from boat wake and wave energy, cleaning the water and helping promote good water quality.”

Living shorelines have been used in South Carolina for nearly two decades, but a regulatory pathway established in 2022 opened the door for residents to install them alongside private property.

Morganello says the Folly Beach project is intended to serve as a model for homeowners interested in using the same approach.

“We’re creating a model for that,” Morganello says. “If you’re a resident who wants to help stabilize your salt marsh or shoreline, you can now have a living shoreline installed through this regulatory process.”

For homeowners, the motivation can be as simple as watching a marsh edge slowly disappear.

“If somebody lives along the salt marsh or lives along a tidal creek and they’re starting to see that marsh edge erosion, a lot of times it looks sort of like shelving off, like the salt marsh is starting to fall into the tidal creek,” Morganello says. “Eventually that could lead into upland erosion, which, of course, as a property owner, is scary. So, if we can protect that marsh edge, we can help protect our upland edge.”

The project is also designed to change over time. As oysters attach to the materials and grow, the structures could eventually become part of a natural oyster reef.

“One of the benefits of living shorelines, like many other nature-based solutions, is that they only get better with time,” Morganello says. “We’ll start capturing baby oysters almost immediately, and by next summer we should have adult oysters growing. Eventually, you might not even be able to see the living shoreline materials we put down. You’ll just see an oyster reef.”

The timing of Friday’s installation is intentional. Crews need low tide to access the exposed marsh and place the materials. It’s also late enough in the season that oyster spat, or baby oysters, are still present in the water and can begin attaching to the new structures before winter.

The public is invited to participate or observe the installation from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Friday. Morganello says the event will have a drop-in format, and visitors can watch from a dock that extends beyond the living shoreline.

Those who want to help with the installation will meet at the Folly Boat Ramp and be guided under the Folly River Bridge to the project site.

The city hopes the model will not only strengthen the shoreline at Folly River Park but also give homeowners a deeper understanding of how nature-based shoreline protection could work on private property.

FOLLY BEACH, S.C. (WCSC) — Folly Beach officials are proposing new parking rules aimed at reducing confusion for the roughly 1.5 million people who visit the beach each year.

The proposal would require private parking lots to post rates, operating hours, payment methods, and contact information at every main entrance, or prominently online.

Private lots would also be required to state that they are not city-run.

Katherine Houghton, mayor pro tem for the city of Folly Beach, said the goal is to make information easier to find.

“We decided that we needed more clarity; specifically, we needed to focus on the posting of information,” Houghton said.

City officials said they have received complaints that upfront rates are not officially required at private lots. Officials also said some drivers have difficulty telling city, county, and private parking spots apart.

Blue signs mark city-run meters.

Folly Beach Mayor Chris Bizzell said the ordinance would create more consistency in signage.

“Everybody puts up signs. It could be a handmade sign, even. So we’re trying to just put some, like, consistency around that so that it’s very clear what you’re paying when you pull into the lot,” Bizzell said.

Some private lot owners support the proposal. Red Shed Parking owner Will Sneed said in a statement:

“I have no problem with this ordinance as long as all privately owned lots show their prices on the street. This is still the first reading, and hopefully we will get more clarity at the meeting.”

Bizzell said the intent is to prevent visitors from being surprised by parking costs.

“We want everyone to have a good time when they come and not be surprised by a high parking rate. So, if this makes it clear and easier for people to determine where they want to park and how much they want to spend,” Bizzell said.

Bizzell said the island still offers more than 2,000 free parking spaces.

The first reading of the ordinance is scheduled for Tuesday night at City Hall.

Proposed ordinance changes can be found here.

FOLLY BEACH — In a split vote, city leaders agreed to transfer a closely-watched lawsuit and appeal over the island’s short-term rental laws to the state’s top court.

At a special city council meeting Sept. 22, Folly Beach’s elected officials voted 4-3 on a resolution to give the city’s attorney the go-ahead to file a motion consenting to a recent request to transfer the litigation from the S.C. Court of Appeals to the state Supreme Court.

Attorneys for Elizabeth Spratt Cooper and Park Lane Partners, LLC, sought to elevate the case to the high court on Sept. 18. Because the short-term rental limits were enacted in 2023 through a citizen’s referendum, the Supreme Court should oversee the case, they said in their motion.

State judicial rules give the Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction to hear appeals on circuit court judgments pertaining to elections and election procedure.

Cooper and Park Lane Partners sued the city over the rental permit limits in 2024. In August, Charleston County Circuit Judge Thomas Rode ruled that the city’s rental registration fee was an unlawful tax. Folly Beach this month eliminated that fee, though not before a class action lawsuit was proposed.

The city is appealing Rode’s ruling, originally within the state appellate court, though it’s possible the litigation will be moved to the Supreme Court following the Sept. 22 meeting.

Transferring the case comes with both advantages and disadvantages, City Administrator Aaron Pope wrote in a memo to council.

The appeal timeline would be shortened, he wrote, and “the court 's ruling will be the final word.” On the other hand, there would be no remaining appeals left and no opportunity to further develop the record at the appellate level.

Mayor Chris Bizzell and Council members Billy Grooms, Skip Fink and Bill Farley voted in favor of transferring the case. Council members Blair Holladay, Katherine Houghton and D.J. Rich voted against.

The resolution directs the city’s attorney, Joe Wilson, to consent to the plaintiff’s request to transfer the case, skipping entirely over the appellate court and taking the issue directly to the state’s highest court.

Though both parties are interested in escalating the case, the state Supreme Court must certify the case for review—agreeing to hear the appeal.

That can happen in cases that involve “an issue of significant public interest or a legal principle of major importance,” according to state judicial rules. Otherwise, the case stays with the appellate court.