Brittany Cole Dantzler has a nickname: “The Hugo Baby.” The Orangeburg County native shares her birthday with the landfall of the most tumultuous hurricane in recent state history, Hurricane Hugo.

“A lot of people I don’t even know, know I was the ‘Hugo Baby,’” Brittany said, “I’m just glad I wasn’t named Hugoette.”

Of course, Brittany doesn’t remember anything about the Category 4 hurricane that pummeled its way through South Carolina’s coastal and inland areas in the early morning hours of Friday, Sept. 22, 1989. But her mother, Cole Dantzler, 50, remembers the storm vividly — especially given the fact that she began feeling contractions as the eye of Hurricane Hugo passed over the area at around midnight that evening.

Cole, along with her grandmother, Blanche Mitchum, and 4-year-old daughter, Kayla, spent the night with her parents, Kenny and Jackie Kelly, in Vance as a safe haven during the unprecedented storm. Brittany’s father, Adair, chose to remain at the family’s lake house in Eutawville in an effort to “hold down the fort” during the storm, she said.

Cole’s contractions began around midnight, but she didn’t want to wake up other household members.

“I didn’t want to wake anybody up — we couldn’t go anywhere,” she said.

However, by 7 a.m., Mitchum realized Cole was definitely in labor and immediately woke up Cole’s parents.

By then, it was a race against time as Cole’s father and neighbors formed a makeshift chain saw crew to clear downed trees and branches from the road to make it passable between the Kellys’ home and Old Number Six Highway.

In the meantime, Cole kept up with her contractions through recitations of Psalm 23. She knew her chances of making it to a hospital grew slimmer and slimmer when she couldn’t recite all six verses of Psalm 23 without having a contraction.

“He was by my side the whole time,” Cole said. “I could feel the Lord there.”

Finally, with substantial debris removed from the road, Jackie Kelly and Cole headed toward the Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg at 8:15 a.m. After reaching Santee, the roads were more navigable and the hospital didn’t seem so far away, Cole said.

Moments later, however, her water broke in her mother’s new car, and that’s when Cole began to panic, she said.

“I didn’t want Mama to have to deliver a baby,” Cole said.

By 9:15 a.m., the mother-daughter pair arrived at the hospital, and eight minutes later Cole was in a labor-and-delivery room.

At 9:42 a.m., Brittany Cole Dantzler entered the world, oblivious to Mother Nature’s delivery of Hurricane Hugo just hours before her birth.

Obstetrician Dr. Richard Williams delivered Brittany, her mother said.

“He was just as calm — which calmed me down,” Cole said.

When The T&D asked Cole during a recent interview if she’d considered naming her second-born child for Hurricane Hugo, she said, smiling, “I wasn’t thinking about names. I was thinking about getting to the hospital.”

Cole said she included her name as part of her newborn daughter’s.

“I figured she and I went through a lot that night,” she said.

As she nears her 20th birthday and Hugo’s 20th anniversary, Brittany says she’s grown to appreciate her “Hugo Baby” nickname.

“I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was until I was older,” she said.

Brittany graduated last year from Holly Hill Academy and is working as a part-time clerk of court for the Town of Eutawville while taking classes at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College. She enjoys playing softball and spending time on the lake, she said.

Two decades later, she remains the “Hugo Baby” and probably always will.

T&D Correspondent Martha Rose Brown can be reached by e-mail at marfawose@aol.com. Discuss this and other stories at TheTandD.com.

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