Ever had a "Hugo" storm in your life?

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Hugo. Does it require capitalization? I say yes. Absolutely! What a storm!!

I remember that day very vividly as do most Charlestonians at the time, I suspect. My children, David and Johnathan were 8 and 5 and have little memory of Hugo. But let me digress for just a moment.I have no memories of having to leave town because of a storm when I was a child. Ever. I guess part of it was just that weather technology hadn't grown to such levels to warn us of the unbelievable danger that lurked just hours away. The other part was just that I was a kid and protected by my parents. They could protect me from anything. Thankfully, I have no memory of such a bad storm happening to us. And I use the word "happening" since that is what a storm does to you. It just happens to you and seems to come from out of nowhere.

The day of Hugo started out with all of us in the family hovered around the TV. Waiting and watching as we had done for the days leading up to the drama of that day. My husband and my father in law kept saying that all we really needed to do was to go West Ashley where my husband's grandmother lived and we would be safe. (We all lived on James Island.) So...that is what we did. And then, if some of you are old enough to remember...Mr. Charlie Hall came on TV and literally started to cry because he knew how bad this storm was going to be. Yes, tears actually rolled down the face of a man that had been doing the news and weather for many years in Charleston and no one had ever seen Charlie lose it. Charlie loved Charleston and he knew. Yes, he knew! And THAT is what did it for me. Now, don't get me wrong, my husband and father in law were the men in the family, but this "momma bear" had two little cubs that needed protecting and we all know what that means! LONG story short, we ended up in Barnwell (at the home of some family members) and waited it out. Sleep was difficult and pretty much nonexistent that night as we heard creaking and cracking noises all night, even there. The next day we ventured home to the biggest mess...and the saddest, I might add, that I had ever seen. The closer to home we became, the worse it got. Business signs on Savannah Highway blown down into the parking lots. Trees broken in half and laying in the road. The closer to James Island we ventured, the more scared I became. We started over the Wappoo Bridge and I remember holding my breath. Would it hold us? We drove slowly over it, as if it would help. The arms on the bridge that came down when it opened for boat traffic had been blown away...somewhere. We began to drive down "paths" that we had not driven before because we had to create those paths. The streets that we had long known were covered in debris. We went home in strange directions we had never gone before...and in doing so, all the while not knowing what we would find. Would our home, our sanctuary still be standing? So many weren't. And if they were, some had trees in the middle of their roofs, if they had a roof at all.
Finally we arrived. The house stood strong. Although the yard was unrecognizable and a huge oak tree laid in one corner of our garage,the house was livable. We had been blessed. Yes, blessed. We weathered the storm and survived. The storm was over, but then the clean-up and hard part had to begin...and all without electricity for 21 days. It was hot, muggy, dirty and tensions were left on our sleeves along with the sweat from our brow. But we made it. And not only did we make it through, we came out on the other side with a home pregnancy test reading positive by candlelight. No kidding. After the storm and the clean up came the biggest blessing!

So, in parallel...the Storms of Life... When you're a kid, you don't normally take much notice of them. Once you're grown, the storms of life do make us stand up and take notice. They show us that even the strong can cry. They scare us. They sometimes force us to move elsewhere. They make us sleep restlessly. They show us the sun does rise again despite our troubles. They never indicate what we are going to find when the storm is over. They show us that just when we think the worst is over, a huge mess has been left to clean up. They show us that cleaning up the mess is hard work and leaves us a bit raw. They show us that if our house is strong it can withstand. They make us unrecognizable even to ourselves. They show us we can live in a mess while we clean up, but that it's not fun or pleasant. And then they show us that out of the storm can come the biggest blessings!

Ahhh, the storms.