24 www.ReadMPM.com | www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.MountPleasantPodcast.com our town Night of Wind and Water I would like to have been somewhere where I could have seen it,” said a Lowcountry resident who lost everything to Hugo. It’s a reaction shared by many. As the fiercest storm in modern history made landfall on the Isle of Palms, two young Medical University of South Carolina students were there and lived to tell about it. The point in time most vivid to Michael A. Pulliam was acceptance of the belief that he would die. He and friend Kevin Williams were swept from the second floor of a house on Front Beach and were propelled through 12foot whitewater currents for a city block, landing on the roof of a one-story house. Sense of time was suspended, he said; the water, the wind and ink-black darkness were his only perceptions. Their experience with Hugo began calmly on Wednesday night as the two headed for the island to board up Pulliam’s family beach house at 2910 Palm Blvd. The young men went with the intention of remaining there during the hurricane. “It was half crazy, I guess,” Pulliam said. “But I really like the outdoors in bad weather. We didn’t want it (Hugo) to hit, but we were excited about the onslaught.” With no radio and a television that didn’t work, they Editor’s Note: The following harrowing tale originally appeared in Hurricane Hugo – The Storm of the Century. For more survival tales about this powerful 1989 storm, visit the digital version of the magazine at www.HugoMagazine.com. BY KATHY KEARNEY
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