COASTAL OBSERVER

Naomi Holmes stood at the podium and closed her eyes.

“I was 13 years old when my family drove us from Georgetown to see the devastation of McKenzie Beach. I saw Mr. and Mrs. McKenzie sitting on the banks of Midway Creek, heads bowed,” she said.

The couple were surrounded by debris.

“All of us were so forever saddened. That was the morning after Hurricane Hazel, Oct. 15, 1954,” she said.

For Holmes and other members of the Manigault family that still own McKenzie Beach the images of 70 years ago are still fresh. They have spent the decades since then preserving the legacy of one of the few places black people were able to go to the beach in South Carolina during segregation. They told state regulators this week that legacy is threatened by a plan to remove sand from Midway Inlet to renourish the beach of the gated Peninsula development to the north of their property.

The state Department of Environmental Services held a hearing on a request by the Peninsula Property Owners Association to excavate up to 75,000 cubic yards of sand from shoals on the northern edge of the inlet in each of two projects within a five year period.

The sand would replace offshore sand pumped to the beach in 2022. The sand “recycling” would only be allowed when the sand in front of the Peninsula falls below 50 percent of the 450,000 cubic yards placed in 2022.

It has already lost 170,000 cubic yards, according to Steven Traynum, president of Coastal Science and Engineering, which designed the project.

“Recycling some of that to the north will help maintain a sand supply” for the Peninsula, he said.

It will also help keep the inlet from pressing against a jetty on the north end of Pawleys Island that the town plans to repair with money from Georgetown County’s capital project sales tax.

McKenzie Beach stretches from Highway 17 where the ruins of a former motel are still visible, across Clubhouse Creek to the beachfront. Before Hurricane Hazel, there was a bridge leading to 18 beachfront cabins. 

Other structures, including Pawleys Pier, were rebuilt after Hazel. But black property owners didn’t have access to capital in those days, said Lucy Reuben, an economist and educator as well as an owner of McKenzie Beach.

Even after passage of the Civil Rights Act, a decade after Hazel, “black families were not welcome in most hotels in my beloved home state,” Reuben said.

But McKenzie Beach was a place for “rest and relaxation, for peace and rejuvenation of the soul,” she said. “It has been our responsibility to protect and nurture McKenzie Beach as an appropriate legacy.”

Traynum presented photos of the area that show sand building up in front of the six acres of McKenzie Beach that face the ocean after the 2022 renourishment.

Removing 75,000 cubic yards wouldn’t be enough to affect the inlet and shoals, he said. After a couple of days, the excavation site wouldn’t even be noticeable, he added.

But McKenzie Beach owners and their attorney, Charlene Green, said the work proposed includes no guarantee there won’t be damage to their property and no plan for mitigation if there is.

“It forces them to officially wait and see what the harm will be,” Green said.

Gladys Watkins showed photos and maps of McKenzie Beach and said the property deserves greater recognition and protection.

“Please, do no harm,” she asked the regulators.

The project has also raised objections from the S.C. Environmental Law Project and the Coastal Conservation League.

Monica Whalen, an attorney with the law project, said sand excavation is only allowed in emergencies and none exists at the Peninsula.

She also noted the project will impact habitat for endangered and threatened shorebirds and sea turtles. “We ask that this permit is not granted until the impacts are properly assessed,” she said.