BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C.–It’s hard to believe that September 22nd will mark the 25th anniversary of Hurricane Hugo. For those who lived through it, we’ve never forgotten the destruction it left behind. Hugo resulted in 27 fatalities in South Carolina and left 100,000 people homeless—my family included.
I was only 6-years-old when Hugo made landfall in the lowcountry; however, I remember it well. How can you not when I always associate the massive storm with this image below. This is what Hugo did to my family’s home.
Hours before the storm made landfall, the news media alerted everyone to evacuate; however, my family stayed. We all gathered with other family members at my great aunt’s home on September 21st in the Macedonia area. There, we hunkered down and simply waited. As it got later that night, I never once fell asleep. I couldn’t. I was too anxious. Finally, well past midnight I heard what sounded like a freight train whistling loudly from the outside. We all felt the house lift and heard the sounds of trees breaking. The power went out. When the storm had ended, this is what we saw when we finally stepped outside–trees down everywhere.
The trees blocked the roads, so we couldn’t exactly go to see how our house and property had spared until my family managed to use a few chainsaws to remove some of the trees out of the way. Once there was room to get out, we headed over to our house. There we were greeted by a big surprise.
As we traveled down Greenwood Drive, we were in shock by what we saw. The house that my family had built was gone. I remember crying and wondering what we were going to do without power and all the damage that Hugo had left behind.
Our neighbor’s home, luckily, survived Hugo; however, it nearly took out his shed.
But not all of his property was spared. Hugo destroyed the neighbor’s smaller shed.
And, of course, left plenty of other destruction in its path around his home.
Experiencing a hurricane was already bad enough. Trying to rebuild was even harder. The weather certainly didn’t help. Three months after Hugo hit, it snowed!
During the aftermath of the storm, we stayed with our neighbor for a while. Then moved into a single-wide trailer until my family rebuilt the house. We all moved into it in 1991–two years after Hugo originally blew it down.
A lot of people get excited when hurricane season arrives; however, not this girl. I remember how badly Hugo impacted our family and how we lived without power for weeks. As far as I’m concerned, I hope we never experience another hurricane ever again–at least while I’m still breathing.
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