On August 15, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declared the Grand Strand Renourishment Project finished. Crews from Great Lakes Dredge & Dock pulled the pipelines off the beach in Garden City, officials cut a ribbon, and roughly 28 miles of Horry County shoreline sat wider and higher than it had in years [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2026].

The upcoming winter poses a significant challenge for the $72 Million Grand Strand Renourishment Project and its effectiveness in protecting the shoreline.

Three weeks later, the Climate Prediction Center put the odds of a very strong El Niño this fall and winter at better than 90 percent [Climate Prediction Center, 2026].

As part of the $72 Million Grand Strand Renourishment Project, the repairs aim to mitigate future erosion and enhance the resilience of our coastal areas.

Those two facts belong in the same sentence, and so far nobody has put them there. The Grand Strand just received the largest infusion of public sand in its recent history, and it is about to face the one winter pattern that federal climate scientists associate with elevated coastal storminess and erosion along the U.S. East Coast. The question for Horry County taxpayers is not whether some of that sand moves. Sand always moves. The question is how much, who measures it, and — if the answer is bad — who writes the next check.

What the $72 Million Grand Strand Renourishment Project Actually Bought

The project repaired erosion attributed to Hurricane Ian in 2022 and Hurricane Debby in 2024. The Charleston District awarded the construction contract to Houston-based Great Lakes Dredge & Dock in December 2024 and funded the entire $72 million through an emergency authorization — no state or local match [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2026].

The $72 Million Grand Strand Renourishment Project has significant implications for our coastal resilience strategy.

Crews placed more than 1.55 million cubic yards of sand across nearly 28 miles, working north to south:

• North Myrtle Beach: nearly 675,000 cubic yards across 8.29 miles, completed January 31
• Myrtle Beach: 275,000 cubic yards across 11.94 miles, completed July 3
• Surfside Beach and Garden City: more than 600,000 cubic yards along 7.7 miles, completed August 15

The Corps framed the work as protection for coastal infrastructure and for a regional tourism economy it valued at $12.5 billion [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2026].

Run those numbers per mile and something jumps out that has not appeared in any coverage of this project. North Myrtle Beach received roughly 81,000 cubic yards of sand per mile. Surfside Beach and Garden City received roughly 78,000 per mile. Myrtle Beach received roughly 23,000 per mile — about 28 percent of what its neighbors got. Myrtle Beach holds 43 percent of the corridor’s shoreline miles but received under 18 percent of the sand.

There may be a perfectly sound engineering reason. The Corps places material where a beach falls below its authorized design template, and if Myrtle Beach’s profile held up better against Ian and Debby, it needs less fill. But “there may be a reason” is not the same as a reason on the record, and it is a fair question to put to the Charleston District before the first nor’easter arrives rather than after.

Whatever the per-mile math, the more consequential issue is what the coming winter is likely to do to all of it.

Why El Niño Winters Are Erosion Winters

The mechanism is the same jet stream that is currently suppressing Atlantic hurricanes. A strong El Niño pushes the subtropical jet south and extends it across the southern United States, which shears apart tropical systems — but also drives a steady procession of low-pressure systems along the southern tier and up the East Coast [NOAA Climate.gov, 2023].

Research cited by the Northeast Regional Climate Center found that El Niño winters produce roughly two additional storms following the classic nor’easter track from south of Cape Hatteras up the coast, compared with other winters, with strong El Niño events particularly associated with that increase [Hirsch et al., 2001, via Northeast Regional Climate Center].

NOAA’s own analysis is blunt about the tradeoff. El Niño suppresses Atlantic tropical activity, but the overall balance still tips toward greater storminess and beach erosion along both the East and West coasts, and toward more high-tide flooding driven by the combination of elevated sea levels, high tides, storm surge and increased regional storminess [NOAA Climate.gov, 2023].

For a sense of scale when these events run large: during the 2015-16 El Niño, one of the strongest in 145 years, winter wave energy matched or exceeded measured historical maxima across the U.S. West Coast, and shorelines in many places retreated past previously recorded landward extremes [Barnard et al., Nature Communications, 2017]. That was the Pacific, and the Atlantic responds differently. But it establishes what a top-tier El Niño is capable of doing to a coastline in a single season.

This is where the funding problem starts, and it is the part of this story that should worry county council most.

Emergency Money Follows Hurricanes. Nor’easters Don’t Qualify.

Notice how the $72 million arrived: through an emergency authorization tied to two named hurricanes [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2026]. Ian and Debby made landfall, caused documented erosion, and triggered a federal mechanism.

An El Niño winter does not work that way. It grinds. A nor’easter in December, another in January, a stretch of high-tide flooding in February — each one individually unremarkable, none of them producing a disaster declaration, all of them taking sand. Erosion by accumulation leaves the same beach in the same condition as a hurricane, without generating the event that unlocks emergency federal dollars.

And the Corps has been clear about the ordinary timeline. Officials said there are currently no plans for another renourishment, that the Grand Strand becomes eligible for periodic renourishment in 10 years, and that a major storm could accelerate that schedule [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2026]. The district said it will keep monitoring and assess future storm impacts to determine whether more sand is needed.

Read that carefully. The trigger is a major storm. A bad winter is not a major storm. If this El Niño does what the models suggest and the beach ends up meaningfully thinner by March, Horry County could find itself with real damage, no qualifying event, and nine years until the next scheduled federal cycle.

We already know exactly what happens then, because it happened this year.

Arcadian Shores Is the Template

Arcadian Shores was left out of the federal project. The area had visible erosion — Myrtle Beach spokesperson Meredith Denari described steep dropoffs that city public works crews had been managing by pushing sand around for years, knowing the next storm would undo it — but it did not meet the Corps’ criteria for federal inclusion [Post and Courier, 2026].

So local government paid. Horry County and the City of Myrtle Beach split roughly $9.7 million to add the stretch to the contractor’s scope, with the county covering $4.9 million and the city initially reporting $4.8 million, which Denari said would land near $5,044,000 once dune signage was installed [Post and Courier, 2026]. The work ran between Bear Branch Swash and Apache Pier and wrapped at the end of May, with county engineer Andrew Markunas noting the goal was to finish both projects before the peak of hurricane season [Horry County, 2026; WMBF, 2026].

That is $9.7 million of local money spent on 1.3 miles of beach the federal government declined to cover. It is the clearest available benchmark for what Horry County pays when Washington says no — and it is the number to keep in mind while watching this winter.

What to Watch, and What to Ask

There is one more loose thread worth pulling. The Corps consistently reported more than 1.55 million cubic yards placed, but several outlets covering the ribbon-cutting described the total as more than two million [WBTW, 2026; WPDE, 2026]. The likeliest explanation is that the larger figure folds in the locally funded Arcadian Shores work alongside the federal project. But the public deserves a clean accounting of which cubic yards taxpayers bought federally and which they bought locally, because those two piles of sand have very different replacement prospects.

Four questions belong in front of the Charleston District, county council and Myrtle Beach city council between now and spring:

Is there a post-winter survey scheduled, and who pays for it? Beach profile monitoring is the only way to convert “the beach looks thinner” into a defensible number.

What is the documented justification for Myrtle Beach’s per-mile fill volume? Either the design template explains it or it doesn’t.

What is the local contingency if a non-hurricane winter causes significant loss? Arcadian Shores proves the county can write the check. It does not prove the county has budgeted to write another one.

Does the 10-year eligibility clock have any provision for cumulative, non-event erosion? If not, that is a question for the congressional delegation, not the district office.

The Bottom Line

None of this is a prediction that the Grand Strand’s new sand will wash away. Nourished beaches are designed to lose material — that is the entire point, the sand is a sacrificial buffer that erodes so the dunes, roads and buildings behind it don’t. Some loss this winter is expected and is not a failure.

The point is narrower and harder to dismiss. Horry County just received $72 million in federal sand plus $9.7 million in locally funded sand, delivered immediately before a winter that federal scientists associate with elevated coastal storm activity and erosion. The mechanism that paid for this round is keyed to hurricanes. The threat this winter is not a hurricane. And no one has publicly committed to measuring the outcome.

Ask in March. Ask with numbers. The answer will tell you whether the Grand Strand is managing its coastline or just reacting to it.

---

Further Reading

$72 Million Grand Strand Renourishment Project – WMBF — $72 million renourishment project completed in the Grand Strand: https://www.wmbfnews.com/2026/08/17/72-million-renourishment-project-completed-grand-strand/

$72 Million Grand Strand Renourishment Project – Dredging Today — USACE completes $72M Grand Strand renourishment project: https://www.dredgingtoday.com/2026/08/18/usace-completes-72m-grand-strand-renourishment-project/

$72 Million Grand Strand Renourishment Project – WBTW — Officials celebrate completion of $72 million beach renourishment project: https://www.wbtw.com/news/grand-strand/officials-celebrate-completion-of-72-million-beach-renourishment-project/

$72 Million Grand Strand Renourishment Project – Post and Courier — Myrtle Beach and Horry County pay $9.7M to have Arcadian Shores included: https://www.postandcourier.com/myrtle-beach/news/myrtle-beach-and-horry-county-pay-9-7m-to-have-arcadian-shores-included-in-beach/article_2c50a1d2-0c01-4a2a-8069-36745d57b578.html

$72 Million Grand Strand Renourishment Project – Horry County — Arcadian Shores beach renourishment underway: https://www.horrycountysc.gov/news/articles/arcadian-shores-beach-renourishment-underway/

$72 Million Grand Strand Renourishment Project – WMBF — Arcadian Shores renourishment wraps up, federal project resumes: https://www.wmbfnews.com/2026/05/29/arcadian-shores-beach-renourishment-wraps-up-federal-project-resumes-myrtle-beach/

NOAA Climate Prediction Center — ENSO Diagnostic Discussion: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml

NOAA Climate.gov — El Niño means an even floodier future is on the coastal horizon: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/el-nino-means-even-floodier-future-coastal-horizon

Northeast Regional Climate Center — El Niño and East Coast storms: https://elnino.nrcc.cornell.edu/

Nature Communications — Extreme oceanographic forcing and coastal response due to the 2015-2016 El Niño: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14365