Charleston SC Under Martial Law After Hurricane Hugo | 1989 News Report
Channel: Abandoned VHS
Date: 2023-09-28

Found on a blank recorded tape in a box set to be thrown out. A short local 12 WXII news report of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the most destructive Atlantic storm ever seen up to that point.

From Wikipedia:
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 $26 billion in 2022) 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. 

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 20.2 ft (6.2 m) 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 200 miles (320 km) inland.