20 years ago: Hurricane Hugo

[HurricaneBill]

Hugo as a Category 5 (classic buzzsaw shape!)

[Derek Ortt]

the first NOAA flight tried to penetrate Hugo at 1500 feet. Dvorak estimates had it as a category 3 hurricane.

Ended up losing an engine and the AF had to direct the NOAA plane out of the storm

[WeatherLovingDoc]

Remember Hugo well, as we had just settled into a nice beach house with our 6 and 7 year olds and friends and sure enough we ended up having to leave the Outer Banks. Given the packing, unpacking etc we ended up going home. I still recall all the more NE hotels were jammed and of course, Dan Rather was giving a blow by blow. It was a dramatic hurricane. DH went down afterwards near Charleston and went to a National Park (Cape Romain) north of Charleston and said he saw a see of trees snapped off like twigs for miles up the park. A light house had been picked up and moved inward too. Quite the devastation from Cat 5 Hugo.





ETA proper National Park

[carolina_73]

I was living on the south end of Myrtle Beach in the Surfside Beach area when Hugo hit. My neighborhood had at least a hundred HUGE pine trees down all over the place. The only damage we had was a pine and maple tree that rested up against the roof causing some light damage. We were lucky that nothing actually came crashing through the house. I helped my dad put a bunch of plywood over most of our windows and it payed off. I remember the howling winds and all the blue flashes from blown transformers that night. Christmas we had a record snowfall of 18 inches.

[HurricaneBill]

the first NOAA flight tried to penetrate Hugo at 1500 feet. Dvorak estimates had it as a category 3 hurricane.

Ended up losing an engine and the AF had to direct the NOAA plane out of the storm

I think I read somewhere that after that, recon was no longer allowed to penetrate a storm at very low altitudes.

Also, wasn't penetrating at a low altitude what caused the plane to crash during Hurricane Janet in 1955?

[Gustywind]

HUGO...THE SECOND MOST INTENSE CANE IN GUADELOUPE HISTORY...MAKING LANDFALL IN 1989
Awfull cane, i've never experienced a cane like this one! How powerfull this thing were!!! . All the night looks like a wolf speaking and shouting "HOOUU HOUUUU HOUUUU"! Guadeloupe has been devastating this day, in my family we lost our roof only 2 hours after the first effects of Hugo. We were anxious, tired, washed nervously. Grande-Terre
( eastern tip) has been striked strongly while Basse-Terre kindly. Honestly that was a pure tragedy and it's really an euphemisma...Tkanks to the NHC predictions pretty perfect and Meteo-France Guadeloupe too! In Hugo's path i don't forget Luis in PR, impacted very strongly, and you my friends.
Special thoughts from Gustywind
Bye bye Hugo...


Hugo 's track, animation, clik on Hugo (season 1989)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/rsad/hursat/movie.php#1989
It's a disaster in Guadeloupe...
Grande-Terre Guadeloupe... sad puzzle

Beach in La Desirade:

[Gustywind]

Hugo close to the USA... not a shy boy!

[Derek Ortt]

the first NOAA flight tried to penetrate Hugo at 1500 feet. Dvorak estimates had it as a category 3 hurricane.

Ended up losing an engine and the AF had to direct the NOAA plane out of the storm

I think I read somewhere that after that, recon was no longer allowed to penetrate a storm at very low altitudes.

Also, wasn't penetrating at a low altitude what caused the plane to crash during Hurricane Janet in 1955?

the rainbands were flown much lower during Isabel

[HurricaneBill]

the rainbands were flown much lower during Isabel

Maybe it's the eyewall that can't be penetrated at a low altitude, then.

[Gustywind]

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Last Updated: 19:55 GMT le 17 septembre 2009
Posted by: JeffMasters, 14:04 GMT le 17 septembre 2009
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=1322

On this day twenty years ago
At 1 am AST on September 17, 1989, Hurricane Hugo made a direct hit Guadeloupe, pounding the island with Category 4 sustained winds of 140 mph. A storm surge of up to 2.5 meters (8 feet) topped by high battering waves smashed ashore. Hugo wreaked massive devastation on Guadeloupe, destroying 10,000 homes, leaving 35,000 of the island's 340,000 people homeless. Four people died and 107 were injured. An additional seven people were killed three days after the storm when a medical helicopter crashed while evacuating victims. Hugo's winds knocked the airport control tower out of commission, and almost completely destroyed the town of St. Francious, on the island's eastern end. Debris blocked at least 30% of the island's roads. Agriculture suffered massive losses that took years to recover from, as Hugo flattened 100% of the banana crop, 60% of the sugar cane crop, and ruined nearly all of the island's coconut palms. Most of the island's fishing fleet was wiped out, and total damage to the island from Hugo amounted to $880 million. Hugo was the strongest hurricane to hit the island since the legendary 1899 San Ciriaco Hurricane--the longest-lived Atlantic hurricane of all time--which brought 150 mph winds to Guadeloupe.

Hugo continued northwest and pulverized its next target, the island of Montserrat, several hours later. Though the eye missed Monserrat, the severe right front quadrant of Hugo's eyewall, still packing sustained winds of 140 mph, pounded the island. Nearly every home on Monserrat was destroyed or heavily damaged, leaving 11,000 of the island's 12,000 people homeless. Numerous schools, hospitals, and churches were destroyed, along with the police department, the government headquarters, and the main power station. Twenty foot waves in the harbor of the main town, Plymouth, destroyed the 180-foot stone jetty, and heavy rains of up to seven inches created mudslides that at the foot of Chances Peak that destroyed 21 homes. Ten people were killed on Montserrat, 89 injured, and damage topped $260 million, making it the most expensive hurricane in the island's history. Elecrtic, water, and telephone service were disrupted for weeks, necessitating a massive U.S. and British relief effort.
The nearby islands of St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Martin, Anguilla, and Dominica did not receive a blow from Hugo's eyewall, but damage was heavy nonetheless. One person was killed on Antigua, and 30% of the homes damaged. Dominica suffered the loss of 80% of its banana crop, and landslides cut off many towns for days. Shoreline erosion damage and crop losses totaled $43 million on St. Kitts, where one person was killed.

Jeff Masters

[Recurve]

Truly one of the most devastating storms of our lifetimes, from the Caribbean to the East Coast. I heard harrowing accounts from boaters who took refuge in Cublebra harbor, waves climbing up the hillsides, boats landing 30 feet above normal tide around the harbor. I believe the eye very nearly went over it and the normally very safe harbor was exposed to the full surge. It must have been horrific. Such a storm to even cause wide damage inland in South Carolina.

Not long after the storm I heard the prime minister of Dominica, Eugenia Charles, speak about the devastation in her country while she was on a visit to the U.S. seeking recovery help.

[Gustywind]

From the weather site Stormcarib.com... Ste Croix strongly impacted...remembering the monster HUGO!
http://www.stormcarib.com/reports/current/stcroix.shtml
- The Atlantic - A Sleeping Baby
By "Isabel Cerni" <hicerni at viaccess.net>
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:33:36 -0400

A Good Night to all! Sh-h-h-h! You know what happens when some babies awake. They get cranky! Let the baby sleep. And may "the fat lady" never sing, the baby could wake up and there goes our quiet spell in the Atlantic.

Today, there were many memories of HUGO in St. Croix - 1989 - the longest night. Twenty years later some people are still "picking up the pieces", many houses remain as HUGO left them - the owners either took the insurance money and ran, or could not afford rebuilding having no backup funds to spend in that venture.

St. Croix was on the wrong side of HUGO, the bad side, for 12 long hours. LENNY came from the west, we were on the good side and with equal amount of beating, we only had to straighten some plants and very young trees, and do a little cleaning up around the yard. Both hurricanes were BIG, but the difference between the wrong side and the "good" side, is quite a difference!

HUGO arrived at 5:30 p.m. and devastated the whole island from one end to another with its accompanying tornadoes. LENNY arrived at noon and lasted well past midnight, I know, I lived through it, all by my lonesome. Actually, my pets were with me. What a comfort animals are especially in times of stress.

We hope and pray we never see another HUGO. We are grateful, though, for the lessons learned from it. We are now far better prepared ( except maybe boaters.?? ) for a hurricane than in 1989, however, being on the wrong side of any hurricane is the worse thing that can happen to anyone. May that never repeat itself. God help us!

Isabel


Remembering
By MelissaE Keyes <melissae.keyes at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:50:27 -0700 (PDT)

Yes, today, years ago, We here on St Croix awoke to a different world. One of total devastation. Everything completely destroyed. The vegetation was gone, the trees not only had no leaves, their twigs up to a quarter inch in diameter had been thrashed off. Grass was gone, soil had been replaced with gravel. Not to mention what happened to buildings.

And I see those people in the "Other Virgins" believe there wasn't much damage, hmm. Or that STT/STJ were hit, also. Hmm.

The day before Hugo, a Saturday, had been a beautiful, sunny day, with puffy little white clouds floating by. No hint of what was to come. People were nervous about the forcast, but no one was really very afraid. "Oh, it'll turn North, they all do." St Croix hadn't had a hit in something like thirty five years. The breeze started picking up about four oclock, and by sunset was a sustained 65. The night was unbelieveable. As dark as the deepest cave. That couldn't be just wind, it sounded like being under a bridge with a fully loaded coal train roaring, thundering a few feet overhead. Unbreaking, solid thunder, louder than you've ever heard. The lower back part of the solid house where I cowered under an overturned sofa for protection was shaking and shimmying, and I mean the floor as well as the wall. The windows were breaking. The storm slowed to eight miles an hour going over us.

Construction was flimsy. I'd watched a normal, for someplace in the States, stick built house go up just below the hill I lived on. Stick built means a wooden house, with drywall inside. A very pretty two story house, that should have been in the North Carolina mountains, not here. The people had just moved in, been there about a week. The next morning, there were some 2X4's scattered around the foundation. The house and all the furniture and everything was simply gone.

The morning was totally strange. Everyone agreed that, at first, you thought it was only you that had been smashed. Then you'd look out, and "Oh, Lord! Look at the neighbors!" Their roof gone, most walls crushed to the ground. Silence, no traffic, no breeze sighing through the leaves. There were no leaves. It was as if they'd been put in a blender, and the specks sprayed, stuck all over any structure still standing.

"Oh, no! The Bucaneer resort was hit, too!" As if commercial places would be OK.

It was a day before you could believe the entire Island had been weedwakked by God. Nothing had been spared. The Eye had come ashore by the refinery on the south shore, and crossed Frederiksted. All wind indicators were broken. I heard one's needle was stuck above 225 mph.

And it was hot. No breeze, and no shade. You no longer had a roof on the porch, or house to get under, and the trees were stripped more than bare. Get out the machette, or a chainsaw if there was one, and start cutting your way out. I heard that there was a fellow out at the Divi resort who wanted a cold beer. He got on his backhoe, and pushed and shoved his way to Christiansted and thereby sort of opened the main road for all of us out East.

And the Jack Spaniard wasps were homeless and dazed, they would fly to you, and just land and sting. And I haven't ever seen any of those tiny hummingbirds, the size of a bumblebee, since. I put out some sugar for the Sugar Birds, and had 75 the first day, then the next day there were about 200.

And the looting, the ugly looting.

Alex Hamilton wrote about a hurricane of similar strength.

Ah, well, enough. No more hurricanes. The weather just is not acting like it always had, is it? For the Caribbean? Let them start off Africa and meander up into the central Atlantic, far from land. But that has its' set of problems, also. Owell.

Cheers, folks.

Melissa


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Melissa E. Keyes
St. Croix,
U.S.Virgin Islands
http://coralreefpainter.blogspot.com/

[CrazyC83]

That Recon flight sure made everyone learn lessons...nowadays any certain hurricane is flown at the 700mb level.

If they were flying at 925mb, obviously the crew was doing things right, since they'd be in the ocean if they stayed at that level as the pressure was at least 918mb (may have been a bit lower at times).

Also, due to the turbulence, I think the strongest winds may have been underestimated, and I would have put the peak intensity a bit higher at 145 kt with a pressure of 916mb.

[Derek Ortt]

the flight was at a constant height surface. it was not an operational flight. Similar to the Isabel flight that flew at about 200 feet

[brunota2003]

Dr. Masters' recount of that fateful NOAA flight into Hurricane Hugo:

http://www.wunderground.com/education/hugo1.asp


Also, the flight into Janet in 1955...it is not known why the aircraft was lost. There are so many things that could of happened during that flight. The last message from the crew was a simple "Beginning penetration." There was a garbled message a little later, but it is not known if the message was from the plane or a ship or what, and it is also not known what was said on the message.

[CrazyC83]

At this point 20 years ago, Hugo really started to strengthen as he made his next move.

The most interesting piece of data is 140 kt FL winds at 12,000 feet. That suggests Hugo was likely stronger than its official intensity. Even using 90% (standard for 10,000 feet, which would make it a conservative estimate), that translates to 124 kt at the surface, which would suggest a landfall intensity of 125 kt. If 95% is used (which seems most reasonable IMO), that would be 133 kt at the surface, supporting an intensity of 130-135 kt. If that is seen to be equal to surface winds, then 140 kt would be the landfall intensity.

The pressure was likely a bit lower, around 932mb I would guess, as a storm chaser a few miles inland measured 933mb, and unofficial estimates are often fairly reliable I find.

[Ptarmigan]

Hurricane Hugo was quite a large storm. It had hurricane force winds extending up to 140 miles and TS winds of 260 miles.

ftp://rammftp.cira.colostate.edu/demari ... 8_atlc.txt

[CrazyC83]

They also sure learned a lot of lessons from Hugo too...I think 10,000 or more people would have died in Katrina if they had not had the near-tragedy at Lincoln High School, since they would still be using older elevation standards which had parts of New Orleans safe. Also those well inland got a huge surprise...but that is to be expected from a storm with 140+ mph winds moving at 20-25 mph.

[Derek Ortt]

10,000 or more would have died in Katrina merely had the western eyewall not collapsed. The winds would have blown those people taking shelter on their roofs into the water. Not sure to what extent Hugo played into that

[somethingfunny]

http://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/ ... 72475.html

How Hurricane Hugo changed South Carolina forever
By DAVID LAUDERDALE
dlauderdale@islandpacket.com
843-706-8115
Published Saturday, September 19, 2009

Hurricane Hugo was a killer.

We knew that as we hunched over tables in the composing room at The Beaufort Gazette, our X-Acto knives slicing in breathless facts about a storm headed straight at us.

It was a Thursday afternoon 20 years ago this week. We were urgently trying to make an early press run for a newspaper no one would be there to deliver, and few would ever read. Every indication was that before the next day dawned, there would be no homes left to deliver them to anyway.

At 4 p.m., the chief national meteorologist in Charleston told us: "It has strengthened considerably.

"It's hard to tell where there will be a dead strike ... but with hurricane-force winds extending out 100 miles and tropical storm winds extending out 250 miles from the center, it's not finished yet with us."

Nothing more accurate has ever been printed in this newspaper.

As we slugged through the afternoon of Sept. 21, 1989 -- Beaufort and Hilton Head Island by then eerily empty -- Hurricane Hugo ticked a degree or two to the north.

Our press ran at about 6 p.m. -- just 12 hours after a mandatory evacuation was ordered for Beaufort County, firefighters banging on doors begging everyone to flee.

At midnight, Hurricane Hugo blasted ashore near Charleston, and South Carolina would never be the same.

'It's gone'

Early the next morning, we knew we were clear to go home. We found National Guard troops patrolling an empty Hilton Head. Palmetto Electric would soon flip the switch to restore power, and we'd grouse about all the debris shaken from the trees.

And then it hit us. We started pulling Associated Press photographs off a creaky machine that moaned like every photo it slowly spit out would be its last.

Those black-and-white images remain flash-frozen in my mind. We saw a sailboat perched on a Charleston street. We saw boats-- shrimpers, yachts and sailboats -- piled on top of each other in a marsh like toys in a baby's tub. We saw power poles tossed like Tinkertoys. The swing span of the Ben Sawyer Bridge to Sullivan's Island and the Isle of Palms lurched dead into the water.

We saw acres of pine trees snapped off at 15 feet by winds well above 100 mph, or perhaps one of the 3,000 tornadoes Gov. Carroll Campbell told us ripped along in Hugo's roaring train of misery.

Then we got a phone call from our sister paper in Rock Hill, near Charlotte. Before we could say, "Thanks for your concern, but we're OK," we heard that Hugo hit them, not us. It knocked out power and downed so many trees four hours away, it would take years to remove them all.

Many Lowcountry evacuees had inadvertently escaped into the path of a hurricane that killed about 50 people -- 13 of them in South Carolinia -- and caused $10 billion in damage from the Caribbean through the United States.

That afternoon, we saw raw footage from a state helicopter that buzzed a battered coastline from Ocean Drive to Daufuskie. Pawleys Island was split in two. Pilings stood in the ocean where a large restaurant used to be. Sand covered roads. We could see the mess in the bedrooms of house after house with no roof. In places there was nothing at all where rows of houses used to be.

"You go down these beaches and there is no beach," the governor said. "It's gone."

Call it love

Hurricane Hugo showed us the power that nature has over mankind and our grandest little designs. We stand by the mighty sea as if we're shaking our fist at the Almighty. We get knocked down. We wait in sweltering lines begging for ice like paupers. And we rush back like ants to rebuild.

Nothing I've ever seen compares to what took place here after the storm. The outpouring of help -- love, if you will -- from this community to our fellow man up the coast and inland throughout the Carolinas was quick, relentless and long-lasting.

Overnight, our worries changed. We went from fretting that the dedication of the new football stadium at Hilton Head Island High had been postponed, to rebuilding full communities.

Our churches adopted other churches, and sometimes whole towns. Scores of volunteers met every morning to caravan into the wasteland up the coast where old ladies sat in debris and said, "I'm tired. I'm so tired."

Our newspaper chronicled massive comings, goings and giving. We inserted a grocery bag in the paper, with a list of specific items people in Sumter County needed. Our readers responded with truckloads of full bags. That was minuscule in the avalanche of compassion.

A local radio station with a signal reaching into the Charleston area quickly dropped everything to broadcast the needs and coordinate responses. It started almost by accident, and mushroomed. Volunteers flooded the station, the whole thing got computerized, and it went on for months.

Oprah Winfrey, who had recently gone national, came to Charleston to see our people for herself and show us to the nation. She raised $1 million for the Lowcountry.

The Rolling Stones and many others helped. But most of the news was far less glitzy. It was of mud, poverty, long lines, lost careers, red tape, con artists, desperation and new beginnings.

Meanwhile, the federal response disappointed. U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings of Charleston told his colleagues in Washington that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was "... the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses I've ever known."

Change

Looking back on it, it's jarring how crazy we were.

H.E. McCracken Middle School in Bluffton was filled with more than 400 evacuees. Battery Creek High was so full some who sought shelter there were sent to Mossy Oaks Elementary School.

Some of our shelters were within spitting distance of water. And they were to keep people safe in the face of a Category 4 hurricane with storm surges approaching 20 feet.

We could easily have experienced one of the most horrifying stories to come from Hurricane Hugo. It happened at Lincoln High School in McClellanville, a beautiful little fishing village between Charleston and Georgetown that was all but destroyed. About 70 people were in the band room, riding out the storm. During the night, water first creeped under the door then flooded the room. It crested within a couple of feet of the ceiling. Parents roped children to their bodies in the pitch black. An 82-year-old lady was held aloft. They all survived.

Today, that scene would never happen.

And as the coastal population has generally doubled over the past two decades, the idea of ordering an evacuation of Beaufort County 18 hours before a hurricane makes landfall is bone-chilling.

Most people left voluntarily the day before, but today evacuations require much more time.

And today we have tighter building standards.

Hurricane Hugo also taught us the value of leadership. Gov. Campbell and Charleston Mayor Joe Riley were champions.

It taught us the vulnerability of man, the kindness of man and the resilience of man.

Here at the newspaper, we still hunker down when normal people get out of harm's way.

But we never -- ever -- underestimate the killing power of a hurricane.

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