Remembering Hurricane Hugo: 20 Years Later
On the night of September 21, 1989, I watched WRAL-TV's chief meteorologist Greg Fishel give an update on Hurricane Hugo. I was on my phone with my dad at the time, and he asked me what Fishel was saying about the storm. Landfall near Charleston was imminent, I told him. And I told him something else - Hurricane Hugo was too big to break up once it made landfall.
Our home in northeastern Gaston County, North Carolina, was surrounded by trees of varying sizes. As such, I figured that if Hugo really did make it some 200 miles inland, it would be safer for him and the the rest of my family to make the short walk next door to my grandmother's house. There weren't nearly as many trees around it, so if the wind blew one down, it would be less likely to fall that direction.
That conversation took place around 11 PM. About five hours later, the fire alarm in Turlington Hall, on the NC State University campus, went off. According to one of our resident advisors, some trash blown into one of the smoke detectors set the alarm off. Standing outside with my fellow hallmates, I could see clouds scudding across the sky and feel the wind gusting around us.
Charlotte, North Carolina's largest city, and Raleigh, its capital, are separated by about 165 miles. But on that night, Hurricane Hugo managed to touch them both.
As I stood under the clouds, having been rousted from good sleep, my family on the ohter side of the state was not sleeping at all. After devastating Charleston and blowing through the South Carolina midlands, Hugo turned north and took aim at metropolitan Charlotte. The area was battered with Category 1 hurricane winds that took ancient trees down in Dilworth, Plaza-Midwood, and Myers Park; that blew the glass out of office towers downtown; that cut off power to thousands of people; and that surprised a region that is unaccustomed to seeing such natural fury close up.
When I finally talked to Dad again several days later, he told me that our house had survived the storm. (This was in the days before cell phones, so landlines were still the primary means of communication.) Everyone was okay, he said, including my sister, who was still sick as a dog while carrying the first of her two sons.
Several weeks passed before I made my first visit home during that fall semester. Although there were still a few downed trees near our house, that was nothing compared to the devastation I saw in downtown Charlotte. Massive billboards were missing panels or completely knocked down. Overhead road signs pointing drivers at Independence Boulevard and Interstate 77 had been blown down. And people were still in shock.
Still, Charlotte was fortunate. Early in the spring semester, on my first trip to Florida, I got just a small taste of what Charleston and downstate South Carolina endured. All along I-95, thousands of trees were down, stripped of limbs and leaves by the brutal winds. The sight reminded me of pictures I had seen of the Tunguska region of Siberia after a mysterious airburst flattened hundreds of square miles of forests there in 1908. Between Florence, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia, it looked as if ten such blasts had occurred. It was a scene that played out again almost 16 years later, between Pearl River and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, along the I-59 corridor - an artifact of the equally powerful Hurricane Katrina.
Charlotte and the surrounding area have, of course, long since recovered from Hugo. But very powerful memories remain. It's why whenever there's talk of a hurricane out in the Atlantic, our ears perk up and our anxiety rises. The question is never asked out loud, but it's always in the back of our minds - when will we see another storm to match Hugo?
Our home in northeastern Gaston County, North Carolina, was surrounded by trees of varying sizes. As such, I figured that if Hugo really did make it some 200 miles inland, it would be safer for him and the the rest of my family to make the short walk next door to my grandmother's house. There weren't nearly as many trees around it, so if the wind blew one down, it would be less likely to fall that direction.
That conversation took place around 11 PM. About five hours later, the fire alarm in Turlington Hall, on the NC State University campus, went off. According to one of our resident advisors, some trash blown into one of the smoke detectors set the alarm off. Standing outside with my fellow hallmates, I could see clouds scudding across the sky and feel the wind gusting around us.
Charlotte, North Carolina's largest city, and Raleigh, its capital, are separated by about 165 miles. But on that night, Hurricane Hugo managed to touch them both.
As I stood under the clouds, having been rousted from good sleep, my family on the ohter side of the state was not sleeping at all. After devastating Charleston and blowing through the South Carolina midlands, Hugo turned north and took aim at metropolitan Charlotte. The area was battered with Category 1 hurricane winds that took ancient trees down in Dilworth, Plaza-Midwood, and Myers Park; that blew the glass out of office towers downtown; that cut off power to thousands of people; and that surprised a region that is unaccustomed to seeing such natural fury close up.
When I finally talked to Dad again several days later, he told me that our house had survived the storm. (This was in the days before cell phones, so landlines were still the primary means of communication.) Everyone was okay, he said, including my sister, who was still sick as a dog while carrying the first of her two sons.
Several weeks passed before I made my first visit home during that fall semester. Although there were still a few downed trees near our house, that was nothing compared to the devastation I saw in downtown Charlotte. Massive billboards were missing panels or completely knocked down. Overhead road signs pointing drivers at Independence Boulevard and Interstate 77 had been blown down. And people were still in shock.
Still, Charlotte was fortunate. Early in the spring semester, on my first trip to Florida, I got just a small taste of what Charleston and downstate South Carolina endured. All along I-95, thousands of trees were down, stripped of limbs and leaves by the brutal winds. The sight reminded me of pictures I had seen of the Tunguska region of Siberia after a mysterious airburst flattened hundreds of square miles of forests there in 1908. Between Florence, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia, it looked as if ten such blasts had occurred. It was a scene that played out again almost 16 years later, between Pearl River and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, along the I-59 corridor - an artifact of the equally powerful Hurricane Katrina.
Charlotte and the surrounding area have, of course, long since recovered from Hugo. But very powerful memories remain. It's why whenever there's talk of a hurricane out in the Atlantic, our ears perk up and our anxiety rises. The question is never asked out loud, but it's always in the back of our minds - when will we see another storm to match Hugo?
4 Comments:
My daughter's ex mother-in-law lives in Loris, South Carolina in Horry County. It is just a little over 20 miles from Myrtle Beach. I remeber my son-in-law being very worried for her during Hugo.
By honeybee4, Sep 06 09 9:34 PM
Ironically, honeybee, the original strike projections called for Hugo to make landfall near Myrtle Beach. If that had happened, the storm would've continued north on to Raleigh, where I was, and would've likely hit as a Category 2 storm. That's why one of my best friends went home to Charlotte. He figured he'd be safer there.
By cag1970, Sep 07 09 9:29 AM
Twenty years already!
During Hurricane Hugo, my cat and I were huddled in a bath tub, with a mattress over us, in our newly assigned Navy home on the Weapons Station in Goose Creek, SC. The storm was the loudest thing I have ever heard...everything was shaking like an earthquake, and sounded like a freight train or jet engine was directly over us. Half the roof was blown off. Luckily our household goods had not been delivered yet.
I obviously lived to tell the tale, and the cat lived to be almost 18 yrs old. That story has always given me Navy wife bragging rights about what we have to go through by ourselves while our men are at sea, especially at moving time!
We lived in Goose Creek for two years after that; our first child was born there. It looked like God had come through with a weed whacker and cut down EVERYTHING above a certain height: trees, power poles, buildings...everything. Debris remained for the entire two years we lived there. A few years ago we visited Charleston, and I hardly recognized it. The difference was astounding; it was so lush and beautiful. Time does go on.
Lessons I learned from Hugo:
1. Get out when they tell you to.
2. Be prepared; have supplies.
3. Make provisions for your pet.
By missmuumuu, Sep 10 09 12:52 AM
Three great lessons indeed, missmuumuu...Just traveling through the eastern part of the state several months after Hugo roared through, I was amazed at the devastation. It was unbelievable.
By cag1970, Sep 18 09 10:58 PM