Columbia sits about 120 miles from the coast, and for a long time that felt like far enough to be safe from hurricane season. Hugo in 1989 reached the Midlands with hurricane-force winds, and the October 2015 rains put whole neighborhoods under water. Hurricane Helene in 2024 left parts of the region without power for days, all without a single storm surge. A tropical system that arrives inland brings rain, wind-borne debris, and long outages rather than tidal flooding. Preparing for that is a different list from the one coastal homeowners keep. Here is the inland version, organized by when to do each preparation.
In June, when the season opens
The items at the start of the season are the ones that depend on someone else’s schedule, which is why they come first.
- If you have a standby generator, schedule its yearly service now, before the season fills the calendar, and confirm the weekly self-test is running and the controller shows green. Our home generators page describes the service, and a run under load is the only test that shows whether the unit will carry the house for the three or four days Helene demanded.
- If you rely on a portable generator, run it, replace stale fuel, and decide where it will operate, outdoors and well away from windows and doors. If it will power anything hardwired, a transfer switch installed by a licensed electrician is the safe way to connect it.
- Have the cooling system tuned up if it has not been, since a system limping through August fails in the week after a storm, when every company in the Midlands is booked.
- Test the sump pump by lifting the float or pouring water into the pit, and if it has no battery backup, arrange one, because the storm that fills the crawl space is the storm that cuts the pump’s power. Our sump pump team handles both.
- Have limbs that overhang the roof, the outdoor unit, or the service line trimmed. Saturated clay and tropical-storm wind bring down trees that have stood through every ordinary thunderstorm.
- Know where the main water shutoff and the breaker panel are, and confirm the shutoff turns.
When a storm is named and the Midlands is in the cone
A named storm heading for the Carolinas gives the Midlands several days of warning, and that is the window for the things that take an afternoon.
- Clear the gutters and confirm the downspouts and yard drainage carry water away from the foundation, since inland tropical systems drop rain by the foot and water that pools at the wall ends up in the crawl space.
- Look at what sits in the crawl space or the lowest level: the water heater, the air handler, any stored belongings. If the space has taken water before, move what can be moved and plan for the pump to run.
- Photograph the major systems and each room, so any insurance claim afterward has a before picture, and review the wind and flood provisions of your policy while there is time to read them.
- Fill the propane tank if the generator runs on one, and buy portable generator fuel while the stations still have it.
- Assemble the household supplies a multi-day outage needs: water, shelf-stable food, flashlights, battery banks, medication, and cash.
Forty-eight hours out
- Bring in or tie down patio furniture, grills, trash cans, and anything else that becomes a projectile in 60-mile-per-hour wind.
- Set the refrigerator and freezer a little colder so they hold longer if the power drops, and charge every phone and battery bank.
- Set the thermostat where you want it and leave it, so the house starts any outage cool and dry; in a Columbia August, a closed house without air conditioning climbs into the upper 80s within hours.
- Unplug electronics you do not need, since power returning after an outage rarely comes back cleanly and the surges take out televisions and control boards across the region.
- Confirm the generator’s status one more time, and if it is portable, stage it and its cords where you will use them, not in the garage where you might be tempted to run it.
What an inland storm does that people underestimate
Two things surprise Midlands homeowners in a tropical system. The first is the length of the outage. A coastal storm’s damage is concentrated and the crews are staged for it; an inland storm’s damage is spread across thousands of square miles of trees on lines, and Helene showed that restoration can take a week in places. The second is the flooding, which comes from rain rather than surge and reaches homes that are nowhere near a river, through saturated clay that pushes water into crawl spaces from below. Both argue for the same two investments: a sump pump with backup power, and a generator that keeps it and the rest of the house running.
After the storm
Once the storm passes, preparation gives way to assessment. Our post-hurricane checklist covers what to look at in the first hour, the first day, and the first week, and our post on what to check when the power returns covers restoration. Both are easier to read in June than in September.
Getting ready before the first named storm
2nd Wind Heating & Air Conditioning has served Columbia since 1985 and worked through Hugo, the 2015 floods, and Helene. If the generator, the cooling system, or the sump pump on the June list needs a visit, schedule online or through the website chat at any hour, and the technician will review what the system’s readings show and what, if anything, it needs before the season. Members of the Cloud 10 Membership receive priority scheduling, which matters most in the week after a storm.