NOAA reconnaissance aircraft reached Hugo late on September 15th, in what turned out to be a historic and dangerous mission. The reconnaissance flight penetrated the eye of Hugo expecting to find winds in the 100-mph range - instead, the crew and aircraft of this mission were nearly lost. Satellite estimates had greatly underestimated the hurricane’s strength. In a dangerous low altitude penetration into the eyewall, the crew of this flight recorded sustained winds of 190-mph, and a barometric pressure of 27.10 in. Based on aircraft data, Hugo was estimated to have 160-mph sustained surface winds (category five hurricane). The NOAA aircraft was battered and damaged in the extreme weather conditions. The pilots of the NOAA mission were forced to dump 50,000 pounds of fuel to escape from inside the intense eye of the hurricane.
On September 20th Hurricane Hugo continued moving northwest just to the east of the Bahamas in the direction of the U.S. mainland. The National Hurricane Center estimated Hugo would strike the United States in South Carolina and hurricane warnings were issued. An estimated 250,000 persons fled the low lying areas of Georgia, South Carolina, and southern North Carolina in advance of Hugo. As Hugo continued moving northwesterly, the storm begin to grow in size and intensity over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream.
Incredibly – in the final ten hours before landfall, Hugo rapidly strengthened to a category four hurricane with sustained winds of 140- mph. The eye of Hugo passed over Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina near midnight on September 21st. Hugo was the first major hurricane to cross the South Carolina coast since Gracie in 1959
The Atlantic House Restaurant on Folly – before and after Hurricane Hugo.
Remember these faces from WIS TV 10 Columbia
In South Carolina, there was one insurance claim for every four households. Hugo generated more than 693,000 insurance claims, and total insured damage in four states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico was $4.2 billion and $5.9 billion overall.
- Hugo marked the first time in the then 10-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency that it laid out more than $1 billion on a disaster.
- More than 258,000 households applied for FEMA assistance. FEMA disbursed $540 million in individual assistance, $236 million to repair storm damage to public infrastructure and $9.2 million to state and local governments in the Carolinas for hazard mitigation projects.
- Duke Energy (then Duke Power) used or replaced 8,800 poles, 700 miles of cable and wire, 6,300 transformers, 165,000 automatic splices, 37,500 meter sockets, 17,000 electric meters, 600 chainsaws and 5,500 rain suits.
- In Duke Energy’s service area of North and South Carolina, more than 696,000 customers lost power — 44 percent of the total. In Charlotte, 98 percent of the customers lost power; in Rowan County, 70 percent. Some people didn’t have electricity until the third week after the storm.
- The longest reported official outage in the Piedmont was 18 days, according to Duke Energy.
- More than 9,000 workers, including 2,500 people from 16 neighboring utility companies, helped Duke in restoring service — an effort that cost the company $62.5 million.
- The Red Cross and other volunteers provided 758,000 meals in the 30 days after Hugo.
- The storm postponed the fraud and conspiracy trial of television evangelist Jim Bakker. Poor Jim.
