A Nice 120 mph Tail Wind

Today could not have been any prettier for riding my bike. Blue sky, nice ocean breeze coming off the Stono River, big full puffy clouds out over the Atlantic, and a nice easy little tail wind. Just a bit different than the tail wind we had here 20 years ago today, like about 120 mph difference. September 21, 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of the direct hit from Hurricane Hugo. And boy did that bad boy do some kind of hammer down damage in this part of the State. Hugo actually kicked everybody's ass and I promise he didn't take any names. The eye of the storm passed right over Charleston. Not only did the wind cause awesome damage, but the worst destruction was from the storm surge that came ashore. The photo of me riding down Wappoo Rd was about six feet underwater. About 30 miles up the coast (north of the city)is where the north quadrant of the eye hit and it brought a storm surge of 18 feet. It carried shrimp boats more than a mile in from the coast.

Hurricane Hugo was bad enough, but the real pain and I mean pain, were the weeks that followed. The whole county was devastated. No cell phones, no local radio stations, no TV's, no water, no food, NO POWER! The only thing that worked were the underground land line telephones. The only way anyone could get information was from a radio station in Jacksonville, FL which was 200 miles away. Someone would call the station and tell their location and then a neighbor or someone else close by could come to their rescue. It took 2 1/2 weeks before we had electricity and we were lucky. Riding today and reflecting back on this date of 20-years ago, I couldn't help but feel pretty fortunate especially with that nice easy tail wind that helped push me down the road today.