Mount Pleasant Magazine Sept/Oct 2014

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We had a hurricane
tracking map on the office
wall, and we didn’t use it for
show. We had been pinpoint-
ing it (Hugo), and followed
it closely on the news. But
on Wednesday (Sept. 20) we
got the word from the Emergency Preparedness officials to
evacuate the island. My immediate thoughts were of long
traffic lines, the people who had been here for so many
years and would be forced to evacuate and those folks who
couldn’t leave. I knew we would have problems. We then
went through the streets and used the loudspeakers to say:
Mandatory evacuation; leave immediately. I must have said
that a million times. There were several senior citizens I
knew that could not get off the island by themselves, so I
went and helped them move to the Moultrie Middle School
shelter. I was really concerned about getting them to safety.”
*****
“Late Friday afternoon, I went to look at my apart-
ment. I was actually scared to open the door. My hand was
shaking, and I couldn’t get my key in the door. I had to
force the door to get it open. Then I saw it. I was dumb-
struck. I saw everything turned over – mud everywhere. It
was a hollow feeling to see all your possessions ruined. …
All of the rooms were trashed. I had a footlocker with pho-
tos of the kids and my paperwork in it. I walked over to it
and hesitated before opening. After I lifted the top and saw
it was full of water, I began to cry. I literally bawled like a
baby. It was bad enough to have lost my furniture, but to
have lost those photos nearly killed me. I immediately left
and couldn’t go back in there. I was glad to have my work
to get my mind off what I had lost.”
How Local Residents
Saw and DealtWith
theWrath of Hugo
Through Their
“
Hugo destroyed trees, homes and anything else in its path.
*****
“We made it Evangeline. The worst is over.” These
were the words that Thomas Williams spoke to his wife as
he looked out the back door of his McClellanville home
during the calm of Hugo’s eye. The view before him was
pretty bad but it wasn’t devastating. For the most part, his
house and the houses of his friends and relatives on DuPre
Road were in good shape. There was no way for Williams
to know that in less than 30 minutes, he, his wife and
their four children, and, indeed, most of the residents of
McClellanville, would be living the worst nightmare of
their lives. The deadly wall of water that was hurtling to-
ward this little picturesque fishing village was still 15 miles
away on the back side of the eye.