Hurricane Hugo 1989 and its impacts

Hurricane Hugo

The hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean begins runs from June to November, with the majority of activity coming in the middle of that season. Hurricanes typically begin life as low pressure systems over the ocean that, facing no obstacles (land), can gain in power such that their windspeeds increase to very high levels. When these hit land, they cause immense damage. Storms bring with them rain and waves, but are classified by their windspeeds. In the Atlantic, storms are categorized using the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. The first level of storm is a tropical depression, with speeds in excess of 38 mph. Once a storm becomes a tropical storm, it is named, and then once it becomes a hurricane it goes through five more categories. The highest, five, is a severely destructive storm if it makes landfall. Weaker hurricanes are destructive in the Caribbean and Central America, where infrastructure is less well-developed, but these storms can do damage to the United States as well. Hugo was one of the most damaging storms in the U.S., as measured by dollar value.

Hugo was already a category three hurricane (winds between 111-129 mph) on September 21, 1989. As meteorologists tracked the storm, they predicted landfall in the Carolinas that day, and preparations in those potentially affected regions had already begun. These areas are familiar with hurricanes and the appropriate prevention measures. However, these preparations proved to be inadequate as Hurricane Hugo reached landfall as the second-strongest hurricane recorded to date in the United States, and the strongest to hit South Carolina (Masters, n..d).

The Arrival of Hugo

Hugo made landfall at 11:57pm at Sullivan's Island off the coast of South Carolina. At that point, there were warnings issued about the storm surge from Hugo. This is the surge in ocean that occurs with the way the storm interacts with wind and tide. The surge was now predicted to wipe out all of Sullivan Island, and those who remained there were evacuated in the middle of the hurricane, right before the bridge to the mainland was washed out (Masters, n.d.).

Hugo's storm surge washed up the intracoastal waterway, threatening towns that lay miles inland, due to the low altitude of the area of southern South Carolina. The hurricane had already done tremendous damage as a Category 5 in the Caribbean, and continued to move inland. It was still a Category 1 hurricane by the time it reached Charlotte, North Carolina, and left a trail of destruction in its wake. Most of the damage, and deaths, however, were caused by the storm surge as Hugo arrived in South Carolina. Storm surge damage and deaths and relatively rare, or least they were until Katrina, because of the enhanced knowledge of storm surges (Masters, n.d.).

One town whose experience stands out is that of McClellanville, a coastal community that was affected by the surge. Residents had taken refuge in the local high school, but the school had been built too low, and as a result the school began to flood. When the surge reached its peak, people in the school were pushing in ceiling tiles to find breathing room as water filled the school. Fortunately, nobody in McClellanville died, and the same can be said on the outlying islands, though the hurricane did tremendous damage to boats and houses there (Masters, n.d.).

The Aftermath

There was tremendous damage done by Hugo, in terms of lost buildings and property, and the value was estimated at $5.9 billion. This made Hugo the most damaging storm by dollar value at the time, surpassed by more recent storms, though it is uncertain if those figures are adjusted for inflation. There were power outages throughout the region, though the number of affected individuals was relatively low, since most people had evacuated, including those in Charleston. The storm spanned a wide distance, and the entire seabed from Charleston to Savannah was affected because of the low water depths in the area (Parker & Booth, 1989).

There was extensive rebuilding, but the areas would eventually recover. There were 29 deaths in total from the storm, which is a relatively high number for a hurricane in the United States. In most areas where the storm hit, however, there was mostly just property damage, and little in the way of human cost.

The Legacy

Hurricane Hugo was a special storm for the U.S., because of its strength and the size of the storm surge. Meteorologists have worked to find better forecasting methods in order to better predict storm surge, which comes from water that is raised by the swirling vortex in the middle of the storm. Computer models in particular have been improved upon since then, because computer power has been improved upon greatly since 1989 and the number of data points have also increased, to help improve the models.

In addition, lessons have been learned about how to build to prepare for such storms. Three are many new people living in areas that are potentially affected by hurricanes, so it is important for people to be better prepared with knowledge of how to deal with hurricanes and when to evacuate. A lot of the problems occur when people fail to take storms seriously and do not evacuate when they should.

Further, there has been better planning for evacuations and for shelters. The McClellanville problem would not occur today because such a site would be deemed inappropriate for a hurricane shelter, because of its vulnerability to storm surge. There are systems for lane reversal on highways to speed up the evacuation process, and shelters are located away from low-lying areas (Washington, 2009).

The final lesson is that there is really no way to avoid how messy a hurricane is. In some sense, Hugo was an awakening for South Carolina about the destructive power of hurricanes, and this has caused people there to re-think their approach to hurricane preparation. By the same token, new people moving into the area might not have learned these lessons, and so could be more vulnerable. A lot of the lessons among the general population could be lose over time without another storm to remind people about Hugo. It has been over 20 years since Hugo, long enough for a lot of Hugo veterans to either move or pass on.