A Brief Overview of the Charleston Battery Seawall

Nov 3

One of the most popular landmarks in the beautiful Charleston peninsula is the Battery, the seawall and promenade that stretches along the southernmost sections of East Bay Street and Murray Boulevard. For those walking along the promenade, there are views of the harbor as well as the stately antebellum homes along the waterfront. But this land wasn’t always here: over 300 years ago, it was underwater, and as the city has grown, the peninsula has been built up and outward into the harbor.

Originally, the seawalls built south of what is today White Point Garden were constructed as fortifications for the earthen walls and gun batteries which lined the peninsula as South Carolina declared war against the Spanish to the south in the mid 18th century.

While those original fortifications were swept away by hurricanes, their replacements were built back taller and stronger to shield the perimeter of White Point. By the time of the American Revolution, this entire region was a heavily fortified complex. After the war, city officials announced a plan to extend East Bay Street southward to White Point, which would require a massive new seawall to hold back the harbor. What we now call the “High Battery” seawall, on the eastern side of the peninsula, was completed in 1818. Twenty years later, the land had been filled in, and White Point Garden was created and opened as the city’s first public park.

A hurricane in the 1850s caused damages to the seawall and the park, and in 1857 the city acquired land that would form part of what is now known as the “Low Battery” seawall, on the west side of the peninsula parallel to Murray Boulevard. By the late 19th century, multiple projects to extend the seawall had been disrupted by war, storms, and economic downturns.

In the early 20th century, the city tried again, and by 1922, the last thousand feet of new seawall had been built and connected to the older, High Battery wall, and a vehicle roadway---much to the dismay of locals---was built around the southernmost tip of White Point, creating the shape and structure we know today.

Charleston has always been susceptible to flooding, but that risk has only increased in the past few decades. Even as storms get stronger and surges get higher, people flock to the coasts, requiring more and more housing and infrastructure to be built, sometimes on extremely low-lying land. In the past few years, the city has been working toward a plan to build a better seawall to protect the city from deadly storm surge flooding.

In April 2020, the US Army Corps of Engineers released a proposal for the new seawall, to be built about eight feet above the tide flood line. After hundreds of comments on the plan, it’s been revised, and the update was announced in September 2021.

The latest plan has reduced the cost and impact to Charleston’s surrounding salt marshes and protected wetlands, and strives to be less aesthetically disruptive to the peninsula’s distinctive visual heritage. It also calls for a series of pumps to remove trapped water from behind the walls, removes a protested rock jetty, and adds living shorelines such as oyster reefs. The current plan is better than the previous one, but still faces criticism: it’s designed for storm surges, but doesn’t really account for nuisance flooding or sea level rise. And while it is designed to protect downtown Charleston, surrounding low-lying areas will still be vulnerable to flooding.

The Historic Charleston Foundation hosted and recorded a webinar breaking down the most recent draft report of the study and seawall project plan. You can watch the webinar to learn more about the current plan and its impact on the Charleston peninsula here .