Were we naïve? More likely innocent. A hurricane was coming and we were not overly concerned. Yes, we would close the shutters at home. Yes, we would board up the display windows at the office and move clothing to a higher floor.

But we were not alarmed. This anticipated storm would skirt us and bring wind and rain, maybe a fallen tree, maybe electricity outages, but then it would surely pass and life would resume. Innocent.

That was our sense of awareness on September 20, 1989.

We had lived in Charleston, South Carolina for more than six years without any difficult storms. Back on Long Island, where we had lived before moving south, we had known hurricanes. We assumed our experience in the north, where we had seen trees topple and crush cars, or block roads, prepared us for the oncoming storm. Naïve. Ignorant

Hugo was a once in a century storm. Before we were knowledgeable about climate change, before massive storms came more frequently, we expected nothing like what we experienced. Since 1989, we begin September thinking of what preparations we need to take to weather a hurricane. Life for many years was calibrated in segments named Before Hugo and After Hugo.