Remembering Hurricane Hugo

As Hurricane Dorian began to punish to the Carolinas last week, many Charleston residents were eerily reminded of another storm that forced them to batten down the hatches in similar fashion in 1989.

Exactly 30 years ago, Hurricane Hugo began to churn in the Atlantic as it eyed a date of destruction with North and South Carolina. The Category 5 storm formed as a menacing Cape Verde wave as it wreaked chaos and despair upon Saint Croix, St. Thomas and Puerto Rico before finally dissipating over the continental United States.

Before the storm’s outer bands fully unraveled, the storm had caused more than 60 casualties and caused an estimated $10.3 billion in damages. More than $7 billion of this damage came in Puerto Rico and the United States, making Hugo the costliest storm in the nation’s history, at the time. Peak sustained winds were registered in the vicinity of 170 miles per hour as the storm engulfed Puerto Rico as the US mainland nervously monitored the storm’s progress.

Steel modular safe rooms can prevent injury from ‘storms of the century’

By the time Hugo eclipsed the South Carolina, the storm had downgraded to a Category 4 hurricane, but its penchant for destruction continued. The greater Charleston area saw storm surge surpass the 20-foot mark and more than 8,800 square miles of trees were destroyed in the nearby Francis Marion National Forest. Incredibly, this would’ve produced enough lumber to build nearly 700,000 homes.

While most hurricanes began to quickly lose power upon landfall, Hurricane Huge was an anomaly in his own right. Unwilling to relinquish its destructive prowess, the storm was still producing hind gusts of 100 miles per hour as it hovered over Charlotte Douglas International Airport. More than 200 miles inland, Hurricane Hugo had somehow maintained a Category 1 hurricane status as hundreds of trees in Conover, North Carolina were ruthlessly torn to the ground, as if their very existence enraged the ill-tempered storm.

A review of the storm’s precipitation map revealed another interesting glitch. While it is to be expected that the bulk of a hurricane’s rainfall to be limited to the coastal areas, Hugo unleashed similar rainfall totals on the mountains of North Carolina while largely sparing the piedmont area. In fact, the High Country and Boone, N.C. – where our headquarters are located – experienced unprecedented storm damage and flooding. Before Hugo, it was completely unheard of for a hurricane or even a tropical storm to render that level of destruction that far inland, let alone in the Appalachian Mountains.

Rely on U.S. Safe Room to protect your family from the next Hugo-type storm

If Hugo proves anything, it’s that Mother Nature is truly unpredictable and no one within 200 or even 300 miles inland is completely immune from the dangerous effects of hurricanes and tropical storms. With climate change further evoking the erraticism of weather patterns and increasing the probability of stronger cape verde storms, now is the time to invest in guaranteed steel protection from U.S. Safe Room.

A modular safe room would be best suited to protect your family and personal belongings regardless of geography or the proclivity of dangerous weather. A U.S. Safe Room® Knock-Down Unit features easy-to-install modular steel panels that can be fitted to any size room, hence creating a safe room wherever is most convenient for you and your family. It’s like giving your home body armor, and it could save your life.

As opposed to transporting an entire safe room pre-assembled, these safe room kit panels are lightweight and are transported by truck in single units for maximum convenience and confidentiality. Upon arrival, you may opt to install the panels yourself or have them installed by one of our professionals.