A Tidewater Gardener: South Carolina

September 21, 2014

Hurricane Hugo 1989

Once upon a time, a young man was supposed to meet some friends for a long weekend at a beach house in North Carolina. However, he was given the wrong address, and in those days there were no such things as cell phones, and he had no way to find his friends. So what was the young man to do? He certainly didn't want go back to gray Richmond, rather he headed further south to Charleston, a place that he had always imagined he would like, and indeed he did, so much so, he decided that very weekend to make his home there. He loved Charleston's architecture, the ghosts of its history, its Gothic atmosphere, and its beaches, but he especially loved the Lowcountry. In places he felt that the landscape of palmetto, marsh, and live oaks dripping with Spanish moss still held some of the earth's original magic, and this feeling startled his usually cynical self.

Being an innkeeper by trade, the young man had no trouble finding employment, and as soon as he secured a position, moved himself to one of the sea islands just outside the city. For the next three years he made many good friends, learned the area's stories, grew fat on shrimp, and explored the Carolina countryside. It was a wonderful life. Then a disturbance from the west African coast, later to be named Hugo, appeared on the radar, and he was overcome with a premonition of dread and inevitability. As the storm neared, he and his fellow citizens pleaded with the gods to spare the beautiful city. Perhaps Hugo could take Myrtle Beach instead. The pleas were for naught, and at the last minute he was forced to evacuate his island home, heading inland in a car full of dogs and one brave cat. The night Hugo hit was spent huddling with others in a Columbia hallway as tornadoes swirled outside. It was the longest night of the young man's life. Two days later he and his fellow evacuees made the long drive back to the coast, where it quickly became apparent that the place he had come to love seemed to have been forever changed.

Although the destruction was vast, the young man's home was spared but for minor water damage and the loss of utilities, so he moved back in. He was also fortunate to still have employment, and spent the next few months inspecting hotel rooms, condos, villas and houses for hurricane damage. Despite his good fortune, he couldn't bare looking at what had happened to Charleston and the Lowcountry, and with heavy heart decided to leave the place. He would prefer to keep his memories of the time before, and to not have splintered trunks, missing buildings, and mountains of rubble be constant reminders of the time after. Though given the opportunity, in the years that followed he chose not to return, but in time his now middle aged life found him back again for several visits. It did his heart good to see how the trees had grown, and how the city had not only healed, but was more vibrant than ever. To him it was almost as if the storm had never happened, and was just one more thing the city had survived, another page in its history book to accompany the British siege, the Union bombardment, the great earthquake, the tornadoes, and being discovered by the outside world.