Hurricane Hugo

Hurricane Hugo was a powerful Cape Verde tropical cyclone that inflicted widespread damage across the northeastern Caribbean and the Southeastern United States in September 1989. Across its track, Hugo affected approximately 2 million people. Its direct effects killed 67 people and inflicted $11 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ) in damage. The damage wrought by the storm was more costly than any Atlantic hurricane preceding it. At its peak strength east of the Lesser Antilles, Hugo was classified as a Category 5 hurricane—the highest rating on the Saffir–Simpson scale. Over the course of five days, Hugo made landfalls on Guadeloupe, Saint Croix, Puerto Rico, and South Carolina, bringing major hurricane conditions to these and surrounding areas. Lesser effects were felt along the periphery of the hurricane's path in the Lesser Antilles and across the Eastern United States into Eastern Canada. The scale of Hugo's impacts led to the retirement of the name ''Hugo'' from Atlantic hurricane names.

The eleventh tropical cyclone, eighth named storm, sixth hurricane, and second major hurricane of the 1989 Atlantic hurricane season, Hugo arose from a cluster of thunderstorms near Cape Verde on September 10, 1989. This cluster coalesced into a tropical depression and strengthened into a tropical storm—named ''Hugo''—as it tracked west for several days. On September 13, Hugo became a hurricane and continued to intensify until its winds topped out at Category 5 strength with speeds of 160 mph (260 km/h). At the time, Hugo was the easternmost Category 5 on record in the Atlantic. Between September 17–18, Hugo moved across the northeastern Caribbean as a slightly weaker system before emerging into the Sargasso Sea. Changes in broader weather patterns caused Hugo to take an accelerated northwestward trajectory towards the Southeastern U.S., culminating in Hugo's landfall on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, as a Category 4 hurricane on September 21. The storm weakened inland and accelerated north, transitioning into an extratropical cyclone on September 23 before it was last noted in the far northern Atlantic on September 25.

Hurricane watches and warnings were issued by the National Hurricane Center for areas in Hugo's path from September 15 to 22; several hundred thousand people from the Caribbean to the continental U.S. would evacuate to safety. Hugo was the strongest hurricane to strike the northeastern Caribbean since 1979. The hurricane proved to be among the most destructive storms in history for several islands in the region. Guadeloupe bore the brunt of the storm in the Leeward Islands, sustaining damage to the entirety of its banana crop and most of its coconut palms and sugar cane crop. Three thousand houses were unroofed, contributing to the displacement of 35,000 people from their homes. Hugo was Montserrat's costliest hurricane on record and brought down the island's entire power grid. Ninety percent of homes on the island suffered significant to total roof loss after the island was struck by the eyewall.

The hurricane's impacts continued into the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, causing over $1 billion in damage. Wind gusts up to 168 mph (270 km/h) were measured in Saint Croix, where property damage exceeded $500 million with over 90 percent of buildings damaged; three people were killed on the island. Widespread damage occurred in Puerto Rico and much of the island suffered power and water service failures. Eight people were killed in Puerto Rico and nearly 28,000 people were left homeless.

Hugo was the strongest hurricane to make landfall on the continental U.S. since Hurricane Camille in 1969. Along the coast of South Carolina, Hugo set new records for storm surge heights along the U.S. East Coast, reaching near McClellanville, South Carolina. The surge and winds wrought extensive damage across South Carolina's barrier islands, destroying many beachfront homes and other coastal installations. Hugo's northward acceleration at landfall led to unusually large and significant impacts to forests between South Carolina and Virginia, inflicting further damage to property; in South Carolina alone the loss of timber was estimated at $1.04 billion. Flood and wind impacts followed Hugo across much of the eastern United States and into eastern Canada.

The cleanup and recovery efforts that followed were extensive throughout the areas affected by Hugo. There were at least 39 fatalities during the post-storm recovery phase; more people died in South Carolina in the hurricane's aftermath than during its passage. American troops were deployed in Saint Croix to quell pervasive looting that began amid Hugo's devastation—this was the first deployment of the American military in response to a domestic crisis since 1968. The damage caused by Hugo also led to significant ecological repercussions. Habitat loss caused bat populations in Montserrat to fall 20-fold, while the populations of several endemic bird species declined or were disrupted across the eastern Caribbean. Coastal bird populations in South Carolina were forced inland.

Meteorological history

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) considered Hugo to be a "classical Cape Verde hurricane", referring to the storm's origins near Cape Verde. Few storms of this variety make landfall on the United States, with only nine doing so as major hurricanes between 1906 and 1989. Hugo spawned from a cluster of thunderstorms associated with a tropical wave first observed moving off the coast of Africa on (part of the same wave would later spawn Hurricane Raymond in the eastern Pacific). A tropical depression developed from this disturbance roughly 125 mi (200 km) south of Cape Verde the following day. The nascent cyclone intensified as it tracked west along the 12th parallel north and across the tropical Atlantic Ocean, reaching tropical storm intensity on September 11 and hurricane intensity on September 13. Upon reaching hurricane strength, Hugo was centered 1,100 mi (1,700 km) east of the Leeward Islands. The presence of another area of low-pressure north of Puerto Rico produced a gap in the Azores High, causing Hugo to gradually turn towards the west-northwest with its forward speed decelerating.

At 18:00  UTC on September 15, the first aircraft reconnaissance mission to probe Hugo arrived at the storm, finding Hugo's maximum sustained winds to have peaked at 160  mph (260 km/h); the intensity of these winds met Category 5 hurricane thresholds. Until Hurricane Lorenzo in 2019, Hugo was the easternmost Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic. Its winds tapered as it approached the Caribbean; at 05:00 UTC on September 17, Hugo's eye passed over Guadeloupe with sustained winds of 140 mph (220 km/h). The next day, the hurricane made three landfalls—first on Saint Croix and followed by Vieques and Fajardo in Puerto Rico—with major hurricane intensity. While Hugo had traversed the tropical Atlantic with a forward speed of 21 mph (33 km/h), the prolonged interaction with the low-pressure area north of Puerto Rico had slowed Hugo's forward speed to 10 mph (17 km/h) over the Virgin Islands. The hurricane accelerated thereafter, crossing Puerto Rico and reemerging into the Atlantic early on September 19.

Hugo's encounter with Puerto Rico weakened the storm substantially: its eye became ill-defined in satellite imagery and its winds had diminished to around 100 mph (155 km/h). However, the hurricane's return to open waters provided suitable conditions for reintensification. By this juncture, the broader weather patterns that steered Hugo had changed: the Azores High became a dominant influence north of the hurricane and an upper-level low emerged over Georgia. These two features generated a strong southeasterly steering flow within which Hugo was contained, shaping its trajectory towards the Southeastern United States. As the hurricane accelerated away from Puerto Rico, it became better organized and its eye became increasingly well defined. On September 21, Hugo passed over the Gulf Stream and intensified markedly over 30 hours, strengthening from a Category 2 hurricane to a Category 4 hurricane. Concurrently, the eye of the storm expanded to a diameter of 40 mi (65 km). At 04:00 UTC on September 22, Hugo made landfall on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, with sustained winds of 140 mph (220 km/h). Hugo's forward motion was beginning to accelerate northward at the time of its South Carolina landfall in response to an extratropical cyclone moving across the central U.S., and this curvature and acceleration continued as Hugo moved farther inland. The intensity of the winds decreased after landfall, particularly as Hugo began interacting with the Appalachian Mountains; by dawn on September 22, Hugo was downgraded to a tropical storm when it was just west of Charlotte, North Carolina. The next day, it transitioned into an extratropical storm near Erie, Pennsylvania, and continued across eastern Canada, eventually moving into the far reaches of the northern Atlantic where they were last noted on September 25.

Reconnaissance flight N42RF

Between September 15 and September 22, aircraft from the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) penetrated the eye of Hugo 76 times, documenting the location of the storm's center roughly once every two hours. Among these planes was a WP-3D Orion serviced by the NOAA and nicknamed ''Kermit'' ( callsign ''N42RF''). It had been deployed to Barbados alongside another WP-3D Orion as part of a research experiment coordinated by the Hurricane Research Division. While penetrating the storm at an altitude of , the plane encountered extreme turbulence and sustained winds of 190 mph (305 km/h) at flight level, indicating a storm more intense than satellite estimates suggested. Flight data showed that the plane likely encountered a mesovortex comparable to a weak tornado spanning a kilometer across. One of ''Kermit'' four engines overheated within the hurricane's eyewall, prompting its shutdown that caused the plane to quickly lose altitude as it entered the eye. The pilots regained control when the plane reached an altitude of at 17:28 UTC. To avoid overworking the three remaining engines, the pilots orbited the center of Hugo for an hour within the 9-mile-wide (14 km) eye while bringing the plane to a gradual ascent. Fuel was also ejected from ''Kermit'' lower fuselage. The plane climbed to an altitude of 7,200 ft (2,200 m) before departing the eye via the northeast eyewall and returning to Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados.

Preparations

Watches and warnings

In the northeastern Caribbean, warnings issued by the NHC were disseminated by the six meteorological offices of the Caribbean Meteorological Council. The first hurricane watch was issued by the NHC at 09:00 UTC on September 15, covering much of the Lesser Antilles from Saint Lucia northward to the British Virgin Islands. The watch was escalated to a hurricane warning three hours later. Concurrent watches and warnings for tropical storm conditions were in effect for Saint Vincent and Barbados. These initial alerts were discontinued following the storm's passage by September 18. A hurricane watch was issued for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands on September 15; this was superseded by a hurricane warning the following day that in turn was lifted on September 19. As Hugo tracked northwest across the Sargasso Sea between September 19–20, tropical storm warnings were issued for coastal areas of the Dominican Republic and The Bahamas. The NHC first issued hurricane watches for portions of the East Coast of the United States on September 20, escalating to a hurricane warning for some coastal areas on September 21. The coverage of these watches and warnings were incrementally revised leading up to Hugo's final landfall; at their greatest extent, hurricane watches were in effect between St. Augustine, Florida, and the Chesapeake Bay, while hurricane warnings were in effect between Fernandina Beach, Florida, and Oregon Inlet in North Carolina. All tropical cyclone watches and warnings were discontinued by 16:00 UTC on September 22.

Caribbean

Barbados served as a staging area for disaster response in the Caribbean due to its strategic position in the region and distance away from Hugo's forecast impacts. Several relief agencies had convened in Barbados earlier in 1989 to coordinate hurricane response plans. These agencies were mobilized ahead of Hugo's arrival in the Lesser Antilles. They were joined by additional teams from the United States Agency for International Development and the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). Additional relief teams from the OFDA, Pan American Health Organization, Red Cross, and United Nations Office of the United Nations Disaster Relief Coordinator were pre-positioned in Antigua to survey the damage and prioritize aid in Hugo's aftermath.
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Civil defense officials in Dominica and Guadeloupe prepared shelters to house evacuees. Non-critical patients at Princess Margaret Hospital in Roseau, Dominica were sent home beginning on September 15 to free space for possible hurricane victims. The government of Dominica urged its citizens to take emergency precautions. The Dominican Ministry of Public Works prepositioned earthmoving equipment around Dominica to clear landslide debris. A curfew in Guadeloupe mandating that streets be clear of pedestrians and vehicles came into effect at 6 p.m. AST on September 17. Leading up to the curfew, residents rushed hardware stores and supermarkets to stock up on supplies. Many on the Atlantic-facing side of Guadeloupe evacuated farther inland. Cable television played a significant role in keeping residents of Martinique updated on the hurricane's approach. Though no formal evacuation order was enacted for Martinique, the prefect of Martinique recommended the evacuation of the low-lying Kinsale area on September 16. Twenty-four evacuation shelters were opened throughout the island. Disaster preparedness plans were set into motion by Martinique's government ministries, dispatching crews to board windows and secure buildings. Air France cancelled its three Martinique-bound flights from Paris scheduled for September 18; flights to the Lesser Antilles were largely cancelled by the afternoon of September 16. Most buildings in Antigua were shuttered by noon on September 17 and all local ships were brought to their moorings. V. C. Bird International Airport closed and the island's electric grid was turned off.

Across both Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, 217 shelters were opened; over 161,000 people sought refuge in these shelters. Although warnings from the NHC afforded ample time for preparations, shelters were required to be provisioned longer than in typical hurricanes. Some of these shelters took heavy damage during Hugo, and one required evacuation by civil defense authorities after its windows gave way to the wind. Shelters in Saint Croix housed 1,000 evacuees. Operations at Cyril E. King Airport in Saint Thomas were suspended on the afternoon of September 17. Banks, courts, government offices, and schools were also closed throughout the region. Evacuations in Puerto Rico began at dawn on September 17 and were completed in eight hours. Most of the 166 shelters opened in Puerto Rico were public schools. More than 2,000 troops from the United States National Guard

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