Hurricane Helene and your Simpsonville sewer line — what soil movement does underground

By Golden Strip Sewer & Drain • Simpsonville, SC • July 2025 • 6 min read

Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida on September 26, 2024. By the time it reached the Upstate South Carolina, it had weakened as a tropical system but it hadn’t run out of rainfall. Greenville County received well above average precipitation over a 48-to-72-hour window. The news coverage focused on flooding, downed trees, and power outages. What didn’t make the news was what happened underground.

Over the following weeks and months, we started seeing something we don’t usually see: homeowners calling for inspections on homes that had shown no symptoms. Not because anything was wrong above ground — but because they’d heard about Helene and the damage it caused and wondered if their lateral was affected.

In a significant number of those post-Helene inspections, we found new lateral damage in homes that had clean inspections before the storm.

What Helene actually did underground

A sewer lateral is buried in soil. That soil is not static. It responds to moisture content — expanding when wet, contracting when dry. Cecil clay, the dominant soil type across Greenville County, expands 15 to 20 percent in volume when saturated.

During Helene, that soil went from normal moisture levels to fully saturated in a short period. Then it drained. The expansion-contraction cycle that normally happens gradually over an entire season happened in days. And it happened with force — the kind of rapid, significant soil movement that pushes pipe joints out of position.

Homes near creek corridors — where the water table is closer to the surface and the soil saturation is more extreme — experienced the most pronounced movement. We documented new offset joints in laterals that had been inspected clean within the previous two years.

Which areas in Simpsonville are most affected

The broader Five Forks area, portions of Neely Farm near lower-lying streets, and neighborhoods south of downtown Simpsonville along the I-385 corridor also showed elevated inspection findings in the months after the storm.

What new lateral damage looks like after a storm event

Storm-related lateral damage is usually offset joints — the pipe sections shift position relative to each other during the soil movement. The shift creates a gap at the joint. That gap does two things immediately: it allows groundwater infiltration during rain events, and it creates an entry point for tree roots going forward.

The tricky part is that a new offset joint doesn’t always cause immediate backup. The gap might be small enough that sewage still moves through it, just more slowly. The homeowner notices nothing. Meanwhile, groundwater is entering the lateral, loblolly roots are finding the new opening, and the situation that was manageable in September is becoming an emergency by the following spring.

Who should get a post-Helene inspection

Not every Simpsonville home was affected equally. But if your home meets any of these conditions, a post-Helene camera inspection is warranted even with no current symptoms:

Within half a mile of Durbin Creek, Rocky Creek, or Brushy Creek. The soil moisture variation in these corridors during Helene was the most significant in the county.

Pre-1990 construction anywhere in Simpsonville or Taylors. These laterals already had displaced joints from decades of seasonal movement. Helene accelerated the displacement in some of them.

You noticed slower drains, gurgling, or sewage smell after the storm even if things seem normal now. These are early signals of infiltration or partial obstruction that can develop into full backup over time.

Your last inspection was before September 2024. The storm created a new baseline. A clean inspection from 2022 doesn’t tell you the condition of your lateral today.

The CIPP connection

The good news about storm-related offset joints: they’re often exactly the kind of damage that CIPP lining is designed to address. The liner creates a continuous, jointless pipe inside the damaged host pipe. It seals the new gap before roots establish, eliminates the groundwater infiltration point, and restores full structural integrity — without excavation, without disrupting the yard.

For homeowners near creek corridors in Simpsonville and Taylors, a post-Helene camera inspection followed by CIPP lining where needed is the most cost-effective way to address what the storm did underground before it becomes something larger.

Golden Strip Sewer & Drain has been inspecting laterals throughout Greenville County since 2005. We’ve tracked post-Helene findings across the Golden Strip service area. Camera inspection: $150–$300, same day.