Marion County, SC
Flood Zones and River Flood Risk in Marion County, South Carolina
Marion County sits between the Great and Little Pee Dee Rivers, and its flood risk isn't theoretical -- the Little Pee Dee set a flood record in 2016, then broke that same record less than two years later. Here's the documented pattern, and what it means for evaluating river-adjacent land.
This page covers what's specific to Marion County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.
Back-to-back record floods on the same river gauge
Marion County's flood risk is concentrated on a specific, documented pattern: the Little Pee Dee River gauge at Galivants Ferry set a flood record during Hurricane Matthew in October 2016, cresting at roughly 17.1 feet and nearly destroying the small river town of Nichols -- damage severe enough that nine of every ten former residents still couldn't return home as the community struggled to rebuild. Less than two years later, in September 2018, Hurricane Florence pushed that same gauge even higher, to 17.21 feet, surpassing the record Matthew had just set. Nichols, still working to rebuild from Matthew, faced the same threat again before it had fully recovered. Beyond that specific river-gauge record, Marion County experienced widespread street flooding countywide during Florence as officials worked through the weekend to manage the aftermath.
A pattern that's getting worse, not a one-time event
What makes this more than a story about two unusually bad storms is the broader pattern researchers have identified in the Pee Dee River basin: this specific area has seen increasingly regular flooding since 2015, despite having no significant prior history of severe flooding before that. In other words, Marion County's flood risk profile has shifted within the last decade -- a FEMA flood-zone map based substantially on older flood history may understate current risk for land near the Little Pee Dee corridor, particularly around Galivants Ferry and the town of Nichols, compared with a map that fully accounts for the 2016 and 2018 record-setting events.
What this means for evaluating land here
For any parcel near the Little Pee Dee or Great Pee Dee Rivers in Marion County, start with a standard FEMA flood-zone lookup, but don't treat it as the complete picture given the documented post-2015 shift toward more frequent flooding -- specifically ask Marion County's Emergency Management office or Planning department whether the parcel's area experienced flooding during either the 2016 or 2018 events, since that real-world flood history is a more current data point than a base flood elevation map that may not have been fully updated to reflect it. If you're evaluating land at or near Nichols specifically, factor in that this small community has now been seriously flooded twice within two years -- a pattern worth weighing heavily regardless of current flood-zone designation, insurance requirements, or listing price, since it reflects the river's actual recent behavior rather than a modeled probability.
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- Hurricane Florence cripples Marion County in street flooding — SCNow (Morning News) (accessed 2026-09)
- Nichols, other SC river towns face flood 2 years after Hurricane Matthew disaster — Post and Courier (accessed 2026-09)
- Mapping & Attribution of Flood Exposure and its Health Consequences in the Pee Dee River Basin — Thriving Earth Exchange (American Geophysical Union) (accessed 2026-09)
Last reviewed 2026-09