Magwood no longer rides out Category 3 storms or higher on his shrimp boat. He got lucky once during Hugo. He’s not trying to push his luck again.
“You don’t want to die doing something stupid,” Magwood said. “A boat can be replaced, but you can’t.”
James Island residents walk to their homes after Hurricane Hugo passed on Sept. 22, 1989. They weren’t allowed to drive onto the island.
File/Staff
Koester started Kids Teaching Flood Resilience, a program which informs students how to stay safe during hurricanes. The events of Hugo — and the choices of her family members — inspired her to write “No Place like Periwinkle,” a novel for middle schoolers.
In the story, a group of young surfers ignore hurricane warnings and go to the beach. Older citizens are unwilling to evacuate, and parents make choices that put their children at risk, she said.
“I wanted to write a story about terrible decision-making in the face of a hurricane,” she said.
Sometimes, Magwood thinks about what would happen if a Hugo-strength storm hit today.
“So many people aren’t used to storms like that who live here now,” Magwood said.
Morales, of the Weather Service, believes it would be catastrophic.
A ferry negotiates the Intracoastal Waterway by the Ben Sawyer Bridge on Sullivan’s Island in this Sept. 28, 1989, photo. The bridge was damaged by Hurricane Hugo. The ferry was carrying equipment from Mount Pleasant to Sullivan’s Island until the bridge was repaired.
File/Staff
He was in graduate school when Hugo made landfall. The storm quickly changed course, making a beeline for the South Carolina coast, then moved quickly over land, he said.
“That’s one of the things that’s different with that storm versus what we’ve been seeing in the last decade or so,” Morales said. Some storms — like Tropical Storm Debby in August — tend to move more slowly, he said.
Hugo’s storm surge, however, was record-breaking.
Some 20 feet washed over Bulls Bay near Cape Romain, with downtown Charleston experiencing a record 12.5 foot-high tide.
Hugo spawned at the height of an average hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. The 1989 season, however, wasn’t particularly active. The entire season saw 11 named storms. Hugo was the only one to impact the East Coast.
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Publish date : 2024-09-21 22:00:00
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