Most people living along coastal South Carolina 20 years ago did not fear hurricanes as they do today. Few had experienced the nameless killer storms of the past. However, those who stayed during Hurricane Hugo vowed never to do so again. For many of them, Hugo was their finest hour. An important story of death, destruction, determination and survival is told in the pages of this book in words and photos from the Post and Courier newspaper files.

Sept. 21, 1989 marked a beginning and an end. It was a landmark in time, as this book clearly shows. The damage was breathtaking. Houses fell. People were buried alive in debris. At Lincoln High School in McClellanville, hundreds of evacuees were trapped as a 20-foot storm surge filled the rooms. Children were held up through holes in the ceiling to keep them from drowning.

At one Charleston hospital, brave men tied themselves to a fuel pump outside to keep an emergency generator running. The sound of gnarling, gnashing, twisting metal and rending wood echoed through every neighborhood in Hugo's path. Families stood together with shoulders against the doors to keep Hugo out of their living rooms. Others sat frozen with fear while windows burst all around them. Everyone prayed. Twenty-six South Carolinians died.

Hurricane Hugo is history now. The dead were buried, the physical damage was repaired, the trees grew leaves again, lessons were learned and life goes on.

Edited by John M. Burbage and Jason R. Lesley

Non-Fiction
127 page Hardcover with dust jacket
ISBN: 978-0-9825154-8-8

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