Hugo

 I know that many people have Hurricane Hugo stories.  This one is mine.  It was September, 1989.  I was working at the downtown Belk store.  The word had come to us that a storm was coming toward the SC coast.  Usually, when hurricanes hit the coast, they dissipate before they get inland.  This one didn't.  It hit Charleston with great force.  Many of my cousins who lived there lost homes or at least had severe damage.  My uncle was a doctor on Sullivan's Island, and his office was spared the worst damage, so the National Guard used it as their base of operations.
 We heard the storm was moving up I-26 toward Columbia.  It wasn't losing much of its power.  Another store employee went with me to the roof of the store.  I really didn't know one could go up there, but we found a door.  We watched as the dark clouds started rolling in toward the city.  It was determined that the store should close early to allow employees to get home.  I was living with my parents at their house, as I was their primary caregiver.
 The storm hit us around 11pm and roared all night.  I stayed up, as it was too loud to sleep.  I kept running around the inside of our house.  As the limbs were hitting the roof, I just knew that a tree would follow.  Our house was surrounded by large pine trees.  The wind grew stronger.  I found myself in a cement storage room near our den.  It was the safest place in the house.  I couldn't see outside, as we had lost power and everything was dark.  It was the sounds that were so frightening.  The unknown.  I could hear trees falling.  It was horrible.  My parents slept through it.
 The next morning, we went outside to survey the damage.  Every house on our block lost a tree except us.  I can't explain why.  Our trees were just as big as others had.  We had a lot of debris in the yards and on the street.  Despite the fact that no one had power, I felt I needed to go to work.  I drove down Forest Drive and had to dodge fallen trees and debris.  I got downtown, and it was dark.  No power anywhere.  When I got to the store, I found that the store manager and I were the only two that had made it in.  We sat in the Plantation Room, which was an in-store restaurant.  There was some fear of looting, so we positioned ourselves at the door to the restaurant.  The manager had a gun, in case we were overrun, but thankfully he didn't need to use it.  He put me in charge of answering the phone for both customers and employees to call in to see if we were open.  He went looking for any food that we could eat.  He found some bread and ham.  We opened the restaurant to the homeless to get something to eat.  We were busy all day.  I answered questions from folks calling the store, and the manager walked around making sure the store was secure.  We both left around 6pm before it got dark.
 After the storm, I found my camping skills came in handy.  It was also a time for the neighborhood to come together toward a common goal.  We went to sleep, when it got dark, and we awoke, when it got light.  One of our neighbors had a generator.  We gathered up all of the extension cords we could find and ran them up and down the street so that people could use their refrigerators or stoves, however briefly.  We worked out a schedule for when each one could cook.  We had community meals.  We were without power for 10 days.
 Slowly, the city got back to normal.  Their was price gouging for ice.  They said Charlotte lost so many trees that they could be stacked six feet high, and the pile would go from Charlotte to Phoenix AZ.  About a week after the storm, I drove down to Charleston.  I couldn't believe the devastation I saw on I-26.  Trees snapped in half.  Charleston was a virtual ghost town.  I did see a lot of folks outside trying to rebuild.  About a year later, I was again down in Charleston.  I was taking the Gray Line tour.  The tour guide wanted to talk about the history of the city.  Some tourists wanted to just ask about Hugo.  I could tell the guide didn't want to address it.  I asked him after the tour if he got those questions a lot.  He said that was all the tourists wanted to know about the city.
 For many years after Hugo, I got very nervous and anxious when I would hear a strong wind come up.  I am a little better now, but strong wind still makes me wary.  I guess I have PTSD regarding strong winds.  I had been in hurricanes before.  In fact, my earliest childhood memory was a hurricane.  I was 2, and my family was staying in Biloxi for that weekend.  I knew about hurricanes, but Hugo was different.  I hope I never have to deal with something like that again.