Hurricanes Hugo, Gracie, Hazel, brought death, destruction to SC
It’s been the better part of two decades since a storm the scale of Hurricane Matthew threatened to strike South Carolina and required the evacuation of thousands from the coast.
After Lowcountry residents languished in gridlock on Interstate 26, the state altered its plans for how interstate traffic flows, reversing southbound lanes to flow northward.
Wind back to September 1999 and Hurricane Floyd.
It would be 17 years before the new plans could be put into action.
In the end, Floyd largely bypassed the state but caused extensive flooding damage in Horry County and eastern North Carolina, making it the 14th costliest Atlantic storm in U.S. history, according to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Research Division.
Floyd was far from the worst.
Hurricane Hugo hits Charleston as a Cat 4 in 1989
Ten years earlier, Hurricane Hugo landed north of Charleston as a Category 4 storm and by the time it dissipated after tearing through the Midlands with winds still at hurricane strength, it stood as the costliest storm in U.S. history (a mantle now claimed by Hurricane Katrina with $108 billion in damage and more than 1,800 dead).
The storm that hit at high tide as midnight fell on the 1989 fall equinox now ranks as the 11th costliest, causing $7 billion of damage in the U.S., according to NOAA.
The storm claimed the lives of 82 in the U.S., 27 of them in South Carolina, and left 60,000 homeless, according to a study by the State Climatology Office analyzing the three worst storms in South Carolina.
Hugo stands with two other major hurricanes — Gracie and Hazel — as the three biggest to make landfall.
When Hugo hit, it had been 40 years since South Carolina had seen a storm of that magnitude.
Hurricane Gracie strikes Beaufort in 1959
In September 1959, Hurricane Gracie struck Beaufort as a Category 3 storm and caused $14 million in damage, half of which occurred in Charleston County before it tracked through Columbia and dissipated in New England, according to the climatology office study.
At the same time, the storm dropped up to 8 inches of rain and relieved drought conditions in the Carolinas and Virginia, the study says.
Hurricane Hazel brings winds of up to 150 mph in 1954
In October 1954, Hurricane Hazel moved along a meandering path in the Caribbean before taking aim at Little River just south of the North Carolina border as a Category 4 storm, according to the study.
Wind speeds were estimated as high as 150 mph between Myrtle Beach and Cape Fear, North Carolina, and the storm retained "extraordinarily" high wind speeds into Canada, the study says.
Hazel caused $163 million of damage in the U.S. and killed 95. The storm killed 100 in Canada and nearly 1,000 in Haiti.
Hurricane impact felt beyond the coast
The impact of hurricanes has been felt beyond the powerful storms that strike the coast and head to the mainland.
Last October, it was a meteorological interaction with a hurricane that had steadily drifted away from the U.S. coast when its impact was felt.
The epic floods in the Midlands and historic rainfall in the lower half of the state occurred when a storm system over land stalled over the ocean off the South Carolina coast and then tapped into moisture from Hurricane Joaquin.
The hurricane was a Category 4 but never threatened the U.S. directly, mainly menacing Bermuda before heading east. Its remnants ultimately reached the coast of Portugal.
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Hurricanes have brought death, destruction to SC: Take a look at some
