Hurricane Hugo

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Hugo was a massive hurricane that made landfall in South Carolina on September 21, 1989, causing billions in damage, many deaths and leaving thousands homeless.
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Hugo: Close call for coastal business owners

Journalists felt the panic, resiliency of Hugo victims'

In September 1989, South Carolinians were settling into a lazy autumn lull. But by Sept. 19, 1989, all eyes turned to the prospect of another hurricane - Hugo, a Category 4 storm that was heading straight for the S.C. coast.

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Archive by category ''Hurricane Hugo

HURRICANE HUGO

Video: Hurricane Hugo's track

Video from NOAA shows the track of Hugo as viewed by satellite.
LOCAL NEWS

How S.C. would react to Hugo now

Two decades to the day after Hurricane Hugo tore into the state, ripping apart homes, tossing boats onto roadways, blasting through the Francis Marion National Forest and, ultimately, killing 26, consider how Hugo Redux might play out today. Hugo: How it Changed S.C. , our special report on Hugo...
LOCAL NEWS

Journalists felt the panic, resiliency of Hugo victims'

In September 1989, South Carolinians were settling into a lazy autumn lull - it was football season, and the biggest news from the coast was the recovery of gold from the bottom of the Atlantic, courtesy of the ship Central America, which went down in an 1857 hurricane.
LOCAL NEWS

Hugo's 'crazy' winds still spin in survivors' memory

The majestic live oak tree in Tracy Collins' backyard crashed to the ground, shaking her family's house from the force of Hurricane Hugo.
HURRICANE HUGO

Audio slideshow: Hugo

The devastation caused by Hurricane Hugo in September 1989.
LOCAL NEWS

Business owners recall close call with Hugo

Terry and Bobbie Smoak have been selling Charleston- and Lowcountry-themed gifts at their Charleston Collection stores for 27 years. When Hugo hit, they had several stores in the Lowcountry, including downtown Charleston, Isle of Palms and Kiawah Island. They now operate one store, in West Ashley...
HUGO: THEN AND NOW

Red Cross worker recalls Hugo damage

Margot Hillman arrived in Santee three weeks after Hurricane Hugo blew through. She was living in Bethlehem, Pa., working as a computer specialist for the Lehigh Valley chapter of the American Red Cross. Between Hugo and the Northern California earthquake that hit less than a month later, the Red...
HUGO: THEN AND NOW

'Just devastated,' S.C. woman recalls Hugo

Mary Scott’s family — the Morrisons — was one of the original founding families of McClellanville. She still lives there, in the village devastated by Hugo 20 years ago, in the home she returned to the morning after the storm, after 10 feet of tide came up in the house that sits...
HUGO: THEN AND NOW

Hurricane Hugo: Its fury, its legacy

MCCLELLANVILLE — A shrimp boat chugged its way up Jeremy Creek on a recent Monday afternoon as a flock of seagulls shrieked overhead, hoping for scraps.
HUGO: THEN AND NOW

Shrimp boats in the driveway? Hugo did it

Forrest Morrison, 71, lives across the street from the water in a two-story brick home in the shrimping village of McClellanville, the town where he was born and raised. On the September night in 1989 when Hugo came ashore, he and his wife, Pam, and their two teenage children had evacuated to a ...