[Leica] Hugo in Charleston

[images at comporium.net (Tina Manley)]

At 05:34 PM 9/3/2008, you wrote:
>Tina
>
>I'm sure there were a lot of " insurance claims" after 
>Hugo.  Charleston proper came through ok though, especially compared 
>to New Orleans and Katrina.
>
>Up north and west  caught a lot more hell than the city itself. Isle 
>of Palms and a few other coastal regions near there were whipped up 
>on as well. From what I saw the important part of Charleston 
>(historic district) was pretty much spared.
>
>Walt

I was in Charleston the week after Hugo and have photos 
somewhere.  My daughter was attending the College of Charleston and 
classes started back after a week even though there was no 
power.  Water from the storm surge reached to the second story of the 
buildings around the market.  It was an unbelievable mess.  The storm 
surge was worse north of Charleston around McClellanville but winds 
were 135 MPH in downtown Charleston.  Most of the old houses in the 
historic district were damaged but they've been there over 100 years 
and were solidly built.  You can still see some of the damage in the 
big mansions around the Battery that original owners could not afford 
to repair.  Most that have been repaired were bought and remodeled by 
rich Yankees ;-)  My son is a tour guide in Charleston and he can 
tell you all about Hugo and what it did to the city.  Hugo was bad 
enough that it reached Charlotte and caused considerable 
damage.  Huge trees were down in our neighborhood and we were without 
power for 17 days.  We had to replace our roof and couldn't drive out 
of our neighborhood for almost a week so many trees were in the road 
and power lines down.  Hugo caused 6 billion dollars in damage in 
South Carolina.  I never want to go through another hurricane like 
that and hope that Hannah turns around!

Tina