On Sept. 16, 1989, Charlie and I flew to Europe for a long-anticipated vacation. Our son, Brad (who was living with us in the Providence community near Holly Hill while working in Orangeburg and waiting for his wife to complete her medical education) was taking care of things here -- along with his brother Bart who lived nearby. There was no mention of a hurricane at that time. We had no way to imagine the destruction that would arrive six days later.

On the 19th, our room had an English-speaking TV channel, and we saw that Hurricane Hugo had come across Puerto Rico and might hit the East Coast of the United States. Of course, that was a concern to us. We were in Innsbruck, Austria, when Brad was able to get us by phone to tell us that Hurricane Hugo had indeed come ashore on the South Carolina coast. He was no longer alone in our home -- 17 relatives from Charleston had come to join him as they evacuated the city. Among these was our youngest son, Burt.

At that point, electricity had already been out for 18 hours. They were cooking food from our freezer on an outdoor grill. Only one tree had fallen on our house, and everyone was safe, but he said the destruction was unimaginable. When Charlie said, “We’re leaving as soon as we can get a flight to come home,” I will always remember what Brad told him: “Daddy, don’t come ... you will just be two more mouths to feed, and I PROMISE you we will not have everything cleaned up by the time you get back (Oct. 1)” How right he was.

The only injury any of our 17 house guests experienced came several days after the hurricane as they were leaving to return to Charleston. My brother-in-law, Mike Musgrove, was taking an ice chest to his car when he tripped and broke his knee. So, he ended up at the Regional Medical Center, where he had surgery.

The windshield of one car was smashed by debris, so my brother, Walt Lancaster (an engineer), and Brad’s father-in-law, Dr. Rod Macpherson, (a radiologist), used their skills to fashion a new one from one of the storm windows that had blown off our house. They also used duct tape. When a repairman put a REAL windshield in, he marveled at their ingenuity and the expert way they had done this.

After returning to Charleston, those who had lived together here for days found varying amounts of destruction to their own homes. Brad and Tracy’s cottage on Folly Beach, where Tracy was living at the time, was one of only two houses left in that block! Parts of a neighbor’s house had washed up on their deck. There were no streets ... these were totally covered with several feet of sand.

Because we were not actually here, even 20 years later I sometimes hear things I’ve never heard before about what happened during the long night when Hugo roared through and the days afterward.

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