"When daddy used to bring us, it was right up to the road." That is how a Georgetown native who now lives off Waverly Road described Pawleys Inlet to the Coastal Observer while he watched water start running through a brand-new channel this month. He has watched the inlet move over the years. This October, crews moved it.
In early October, crews cut a new inlet across the south end of the island. A signed agreement is meant to keep it in place, and it says who pays to move the inlet back if it drifts. For anyone who walks a dog, casts a line or hunts for shells past the public parking lot, the walk is shorter. It also ends at water that a town council member describes as moving fast.
Half a mile, given back in about a week
By the time of the September reporting, the old inlet had drifted more than half a mile from where it sat before the town's beach renourishment project, according to the Coastal Observer. Prince George property owners sued in 2022, claiming the renourishment completed in 2020 caused the migration. The town, its contractors and the state agencies involved denied responsibility but settled for $4 million. Part of that money paid $1.3 million for 16.3 acres south of the parking lot. The buyer was PG Inlet Partners, which holds the state and federal permits for the work.
The work started at sunrise. The Coastal Observer's Oct. 2 report opens on a row of 46-ton dump trucks lined up on the south end. Trackhoes and bulldozers dug sand from the spit. That sand went into Pawleys Creek to build a dike between the spit and Prince George, which pushes the creek's flow into the new channel. The cut was planned for 1,000 feet south of the lot. The finished inlet sits about 750 feet south of it.
The south end by the numbers | Figure |
|---|---|
Old inlet's drift from its pre-renourishment spot | More than half a mile |
Planned location of the new cut | 1,000 feet south of the public lot |
Location as built | About 750 feet south of the public lot |
Designed channel width | About 300 feet |
Designed low-tide depth | About 5 feet |
Settlement corridor for the inlet | About 750 feet wide |
The south-end beach walk is now much shorter. The sand that used to run south past the lot was, in the Coastal Observer's words, "a popular fishing spot." Once the inlet moved, that ground ended up on the Prince George side. As the crews started work, Pawleys Island Police Chief Mike Fanning drove down to tell anglers and dog walkers they might end up on the Prince George side of the inlet. Several told the paper they hadn't heard about the project. One of them was a Clemson University environmental archaeologist from the Baruch Institute on Hobcaw Barony, out with his two rescue dogs. He called the old walk "a fantastic way to get away from the crowd and to be between the waters."
The water at the new edge moves fast
A newly cut inlet is not a quiet tidal creek. A week after the cut, a weekend storm and a spring tide washed over the beach and the creek, and the channel held. Steven Traynum, president of Coastal Science and Engineering, the firm that designed the project, told the town that a new recurved spit was already "growing into the excavated channel," with "no evidence of the channel moving to the north as it adjusts."
Town Council Member Mark Hawn was less at ease about the people standing beside it. "It's unnerving to watch. The water's moving through there fast," he said, according to the Coastal Observer. "Everybody's ignoring the signage. They're a foot or two away and not paying attention." The same storm washed a smaller warning sign into the beach grass. The town plans a rip-current warning sign at the new inlet. Before the cut, Traynum had suggested limiting public access to the new inlet for about a week after excavation as a precaution.
The island has done this before. In summer 2025, after drownings near Midway Inlet, the town put up two 4-by-8-foot, double-sided warning signs between the Shell Road beach access and the north inlet. It also planned to add torpedo-shaped rescue buoys, the Coastal Observer reported. The planned south-end sign is modeled on those north-end signs. The town's swimmer safety page says Pawleys Island beaches are not patrolled, swimming is at your own risk, and anyone who sees a person in distress should call 911. It also notes a life ring at each beach access.
The October change hits dog walkers in particular. The seasonal daytime leash rule, which runs May 1 through Sept. 30 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., ended just before the trucks arrived. The town's dogs on the beach page still requires a leash in the owner's hand, voice control and cleanup the rest of the year. That is general information, not legal advice; the town's page and Town Hall at 323 Myrtle Ave. are the place to confirm the current rules.
A shoreline with a written agreement behind it
The settlement sets where the inlet is supposed to stay and who pays to put it back. The agreement has the town cooperating to keep the inlet within a corridor about 750 feet wide, and any future relocation would need new permits. Mayor Brian Henry laid out the cost split. If the inlet moves north, the town pays to move it south. If it moves south, Prince George owners pay to move it north.
The agreement also links the inlet to the island's own beach. The town may dig up to 100,000 cubic yards of sand from the inlet each year for renourishment if needed, and Prince George owners agreed not to object to future renourishment projects on the island. Over three years of required annual monitoring, reports must track beach width, dune condition and changes in sand volume. That will show how the inlet "reacts," Town Administrator Dan Newquist said.
Not everyone on the sand expects the arrangement to last. The archaeologist walking his dogs told the Coastal Observer, "We see it in the historical maps. That's part of a dynamic coast line. These places have to move, so if you keep tinkering with it, you're just kind of throwing good money after bad." The Waverly Road resident wondered aloud how long the new inlet would stay where it is.
What still has to happen before Nov. 30
The permits put the project on a tight clock to protect shorebirds and marine plants and animals. As of the most recent Coastal Observer update on Oct. 16, here is where things stand:
- The cut is finished. The new channel was dug a week before the mid-October storm and held through it.
- The Prince George side is still underway. About 90,000 of the planned 225,000 cubic yards of sand had been moved to rebuild the beach and dunes there. Work was expected to finish in early November.
- The deadline doesn't move. If the work isn't finished by Nov. 30, the Robert Collins Co., the contractor that also worked on the island after Hurricane Ian in 2022, has to stop and come back next summer.
- The public lot was expected to stay open. Newquist said the project should not close the south-end parking lot. He said safety signs and fencing would go up to keep beachgoers out of the work area.
- The new sign is planned. The rip-current warning for the new inlet is on the town's list. The Town of Pawleys Island website is the place to check whether it has gone up.
People have already started walking out to the new channel. The Coastal Observer described visitors on the north side of the inlet looking for shells, fishing or just looking, from the moment water began to flow. The south-end walk is about 750 feet of sand from the parking lot to fast water, and the trucks are still working on the far side.
At Perry Peace, we follow changes like this inlet because they change how the island is used day to day, and we're glad to talk through what the new south end means for the Pawleys Island you know. When you want a clear picture of the island right now, ask us for a free market report.