20 www.ReadMPM.com | www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.MountPleasantPodcast.com Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my longtime relationship with hurricanes started in 1969 when Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. A Category 5 storm with 190 mph sustained winds, Camille was the most powerful hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States. All the destruction and death caused by this act of Mother Nature happened one day after I left Biloxi, Mississippi, where I was training with the U.S. Air Force. There was no Weather Channel, internet or sophisticated software to fully document Hurricane Camille back then, but advances were well underway by 1989 when Hurricane Hugo struck the coast of South Carolina. Founded in 1982, the Weather Channel took delight in visiting the historic city of Charleston and the surrounding islands. Viewers were able to instantly see the horrific results of this fierce hurricane that slammed into the coastline during high tide the night of Sept. 21. Hurricane Hugo’s high winds and pressure were quickly approaching the South Carolina shoreline while my art director and I were feverishly working to make the impending deadline for East Cooper Magazine, the predecessor of Mount Pleasant Magazine. Everyone around me was frantically preparing for what ended up being a Category 4 hurricane when it hit South Carolina. My focus was getting the magazine completed and to our printer in Florida. The trouble was that with Hugo on the way, the last flight out of Charleston International Airport was already gone. I received a call from my wife, Kim, who knows firsthand (for 30 years now) how passionate I am about my craft. She knew I would do anything to get my magazine to the printer, even facing the wrath of Hurricane Hugo. I can remember her purposeful words: “You know Bill, the only way to get East Cooper Magazine to the printer is to drive to Columbia and get it on a flight from there.” Those were the exact words I needed to hear. I packed up the family and the material for East Cooper Magazine and headed to Columbia before the rest of the Lowcountry’s population evacuated and clogged up the highways leading out of Charleston. It was the right call. Early the following morning, I sent my magazine to the printer, driving to the Columbia airport to place the material on one of the last flights out of South Carolina’s capital city. From there, we headed to Charlotte, as Hugo would do a few days later. I had no idea I would be facing the wrath of that violent storm, and that later my passion for publishing would lead me into the path of similar hurricanes. After Hugo ran us out of Charlotte, we headed to Chimney Rock. Soon after, we decided to return to Mount Pleasant. The reports of power outages and the devastation caused by this massive hurricane caused anxiety for the whole family. As we edged closer to our home, the anxiety intensified, though I tried to keep it to a minimum. After all, we hadn’t seen for ourselves what had really happened in Mount Pleasant, Isle of Palms or Sullivan’s Island. As a family, I knew we needed to keep as calm as possible because we didn’t know what was ahead of us. As we traveled closer to Charleston, Hugo’s destruction became more obvious with each mile. Like everyone around us, we were in a bit of a daze. Everyone’s world had been turned upside down overnight. Loud and clunky generators could be heard throughout East Cooper. For those of us lucky enough to have one, they were the only source of electricity. Fortunately, at the time, the office of East Cooper The Story of a Hurricane Chaser our town Bill Macchio, right, with Bill Gray, former hurricane forecaster with the University of Colorado and guest speaker at the Governor’s Hurricane Conference (1989).
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