Hurricane Hugo: Unraveling the Trail of Destruction and Lessons Learned

Introduction

Hurricane Hugo is considered as one of the most devastating natural disasters. It occurred in the year 1989. It was a powerful hurricane that caused loss of life and destruction of property. It affected the east coast of American continent causing devastation in the United States, the Caribbean islands, and Canada. The occurrence of hurricane Hugo shed light on the need for a proper mechanism of crisis management and helped the development of effective ways of dealing with disasters (Schneider, 2011, p.90).

Caribbean

 The hurricane hit the Caribbean with high force. It was a category five which is very devastating. It caused damages worth three billion as it moved across the islands of the Caribbean. Some of the places affected by the hurricane include Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Island. These islands suffered the full force of the hurricane as it brought winds of category 4 and 5. Houses were destroyed and people lost their lives. Individual states of the affected islands in the Caribbean used different efforts to manage the crisis. One of the implementation methods common in all of them is the development of relief effort associated with offering food shelter and rescuing those still trapped by the hurricane. Antigua was set up as the base whereby operations to assist victims of the hurricane took place. At the time, the governments of the respective countries made efforts to manage the crisis but it was too big, and other countries had to be involved in the rescue and relief. People form the Caribbean island were left in distress by the hurricane. It devastated the livelihoods of many people. However, the collective behavior of the masses was associated with efforts of helping one another through the chaos (Schneider, 2011, p.96).

South Carolina

The United States was stricken by the hurricane, and South Carolina was one of the regions that suffered the most. The hurricane hit this region with category four winds. The region suffered great destruction of property as a result of winds that reached up to 120 mph. Some of the devastation experienced in this region was the disruption of electricity to more than two hundred thousand homes. Tree in forests was also affected by the high-speed winds. Storm surges also caused a lot of damage. The region had some level of preparedness associated with the existence of institutions that could shelter people during the storm. There were early warnings that encouraged people to find shelters in schools and hospitals which had stable structures that could sustain the damage. The region was more or less prepared and thus suffered less as compared to the counties in the Caribbean (Schneider, 2011, p.101.

North Carolina

The Hurricane Hugo hit North Carolina and caused some considerable amount of damage. The intensity of the storm was not as much as that of other regions such as the Caribbean or South Carolina but resulted in the toppling of trees that disrupted power. The school closed and access through the use of several roads was limited by the storm. In North Carolina, the people were already used to dealing with disaster, and the storm did not affect them as compared to other regions. Like South Carolina, the region had various places of the shelter where people could go and shelter themselves from the raging storms. They were well prepared for such a disaster thanks to early warning systems. Despite such ability to manage crises, the hurricane caused damaged of a proximately one billion dollars (Schneider, 2011, p.97).

Works Cited

 Schneider, Saundra  K. Dealing with Disaster: Public Management in Crisis Situations. 2nd ed., New York,  M.E., Armonk, 2011.