25 www.ReadMPM.com | www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.MountPleasantPodcast.com were unaware that by 6 p.m. on Thursday, the storm was upgraded to Category 4, with winds of 135 mph predicted. “We weren’t concerned at first,” Pulliam said, “because the winds were only 70 to 80 mph. But we had no television. If we had known the storm was upgraded, we’d have left.” The two were in touch by phone with parents and friends in Columbia. Pulliam’s mother called the Isle of Palms Police Department to report the presence of the two on the island, Pulliam said. His grandfather called to instruct them to leave the two-story brick house, and go to the house next door, which was on stilts: “My grandfather was worried about the 12-to-18-foot tidal surge predicted. He didn’t think the house would stand. There was nowhere for the water to go.” They left at 8:30, when the power went out. “We gathered the candles and went next door,” to the house owned by Othniel Wienges of St. Matthews. “It was very, very dark.” By 9 p.m., Hugo began to flex its muscles. “The house started to shake and glass began to break upstairs,” said Pulliam. They found a weather radio and learned that, incredibly, the storm was not predicted to make landfall for another three hours: “We realized then we were in for quite a ride.” In the hours to come, said Pulliam, “the water became the most terrifying thing of all.” In less than an hour, the water had risen by 15 feet to seep into air conditioning ducts in their second-floor refuge. The floor’s linoleum would later become “a giant bubble, with water underneath.” Waves battered the structure. The noise of the water and wind was not the only sensory input affecting Pulliam and Williams. As the eye approached, barometric pressures plummeted, causing ears to “pop” in a manner similar to ascending in an airplane. A five-gallon water cooler in the house began to bubble. The strange calm of the hurricane’s eye lasted about 30 to 40 minutes. “The wind slowed and it got quieter,” Pulliam said. “All you could hear was water under the house. We realized we’d both lost our cars (which were floating out front), but that didn’t bother us. We thought we were lucky to be alive.” They also believed the worst was over. “I thought, well, the house made it through the first part of the storm, and the second part can’t be as bad.” As anyone who experienced the storm, even hundreds of miles inland discovered, this was not the case. “In the first part of the storm, the wind came from the front of the house,” said Pulliam, “and blew the water from the house. When the wind changed direction, it blew the our town
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