hugo

It seems like just yesterday, although today marks 20 years. But still, I remember it so vividly. It was a Thursday. I know because I always had gymnastics on Thursdays. My Mom picked me up and when we got home, I recall her saying (to my Dad): Ray, I went to the grocery store and all the milk and bread was gone. I saw people boarding up their windows. This storm isn't coming for us. Why are people panicking?

It was only a few short hours later that I woke to a loud rumbling in the attic just above my bedroom (boxes, moving around). Scared and a little confused about all the talk of this guy they called "Hugo", I crept into my parent's bedroom. 5 minutes later, we were all three in the downstairs bedroom - trying to sleep but waiting. The rain and the wind picked up and I heard it. The train. You know, the train they always talk about. When a hurricane is coming. It's true. I clearly remember that sound and laying in the bed with my parents in that tiny downstairs bedroom. I was terrified.

Somehow we slept through most of the madness and rose the next morning to find a true mess. Granted, it wasn't the disaster experienced in my new hometown of Charleston, but, at our house in Lancaster, trees were toppled (5, I think), one giant tree-trunk lay slain across our front porch, debris was scattered, power was out... we lived on a dead end street, the entrance was completely blocked by a grand-daddy sized oak. My poor swingset had been massacred - my biggest concern.

As a child, it was almost like an adventure - no escape from our street, dinner by candlelight for over a week, no school, and lots of talk and wild stories. Now as an adult, I realize the severity and how lucky we were to escape with so little damage. Three tall pines nestled right in beside our sunroom windows, and they were all down that morning. Had the wind blown in any other direction, our house would have been traumatically beaten. But they fell away.

It's a day I will never forget as long as I live. And almost impossible to believe that it was 20 years ago.