Charleston – Candy Hatcher

CHARLESTON’S SPIRIT INTACT AMID STORM-RAVAGED LIVES

Palm Beach Post October 22, 1989

CANDY HATCHER

CHARLESTON, S.C.

Hurricane Hugo rode through South Carolina like a midnight marauder, doing its best to ravage the spirit of 500,000 people and spoil the charm, grace and tax base of a 300-year-old city. One month ago today, the mess of fallen trees and power lines, scattered shingles and splintered wood, leaking gas mains, broken water pipes and overflowing septic tanks gave Charlestonians reason enough to abandon the peninsula to the kudzu. Instead, with resourcefulness and a sense of adventure, they went to work. And now, all over town, the great mansions are drying out and prettying their faces for next month’s Preservation Society Tour. Not since the earthquake of 1886 has the city been so closely cropped, so aware of its blemishes, or so full of purpose.

More than three weeks after Hugo filled most of her basement with sea water, Ruby Fulton, 81, raked the dirt along the front strip of her Folly Beach home, trying to put her yard back together. “I was raised in hard times,” she said. “I can make it most anywhere.” Kevin Tetrick, 22, a student at the College of Charleston, went to a stranger’s house and begged a shower. Then he found a water source four blocks away, borrowed coils of hose from up and down the street and connected them to his family’s house on Folly Beach.

Gentry Penington, 10, a freckle-faced third-generation Charlestonian, collected water jugs from her neighbors and filled them with rain water, which her family used for flushing and bathing.

The night of the storm, Gentry and her parents stayed at their house on the Isle of Palms, two blocks from the ocean. Gentry’s father, George Penington, who she says is “kind of smart,” is a licensed building contractor. “He could tell about the structure of the house and that it was safe” to stay, she said. But the three had another reason for staying: “We are Charlestonians, and we stayed through hurricanes before,” Gentry’s mother, Janice Penington, said.

Unlike some neighbors, who evacuated the island and returned days later to find their homes in shambles, the Peningtons woke up the next morning with nearly everything intact. The family Toyota ended up 11/2 blocks down the street with their mailbox attached to it. The sailboat landed in the marsh. And for days after the storm, the sixth-grader said, she tiptoed around upstairs, trying not to rock the shaky porch. “I’m used to being rambunctious and sliding downstairs and stuff,”

Gentry said, “and we could barely even walk because we were scared the porch would fall.”

`HE’S GOING TO BE RICH’

Now George Penington, who was just starting a contracting business when Hugo hit, has more customers than he can handle. “He’s going to help people rebuild their houses,” Gentry said. “He’s going to be rich.” All along the South Carolina coast, builders and carpenters are making a killing. Tree-removal companies have been offered more jobs than they can manage. City building inspectors have condemned houses and advised homeowners how best to rebuild. An estimated 213 houses along the 110-mile section of coastline hit by Hugo sustained damage equal to two-thirds of their value, and their owners probably won’t be allowed to rebuild because of new coastal building regulations that prohibit building near the water. Water bills were mailed a few weeks ago in Folly Beach, and Council Clerk Brenda Tucker said some were returned recently with a note: “Remove the meter. I no longer have a house.”

`WE’RE COMING BACK’

But those left with parts of their house are looking for lumber and someone to tell them what the new building codes allow. If a house on the coast is “more than halfway gone,” Penington said, the owner must abide by the new building codes in rebuilding. That means putting the house on pilings. Eva and Ralph Limehouse, whose cottage was one of about 200 severely damaged along Folly Beach’s front two rows of homes, lost their porch, deck, stairs and part of the roof in the storm. Last week, the couple climbed a ladder to the kitchen, packed their dishes and vowed to rebuild.

“We’re coming back,” Ralph Limehouse said. “Somehow. If I have to put me a tent here, I’ll be back.”

A few miles north in Isle of Palms, an island town of 6,500 that had no link to the mainland for about two weeks after the hurricane washed away the bridge, residents posted signs with a similar message: “You can’t keep a good town down.” But one resident, Blake Hughes, surveyed the pieces of brick and mortar where his five-bedroom oceanfront house used to be and said he wasn’t sure whether he’d be back.

“We’re waiting `til the emotions subside before deciding what to do,”

Hughes, 75, said. “This was the dream house.” A broken record, a bashed-up turntable and a tricycle his grandchildren used to ride were about all that remained on the foundation of his home. About 15 percent of the homes in Isle of Palms were destroyed; about 40 percent suffered major damage.

Hughes, a former magazine publisher whose hobby is collecting books, said he packed his clothes and photo albums and evacuated before the storm. When he returned a few days later, he found his furniture, prized classical records and 1,500 books gone.

A few lots north, one of Charleston’s most prominent developers, Michael Knapp, stood where his house used to be and laughed. His belongings were spread over a three-block area, and a friend was yelling whenever he found something of Knapp’s.

“Here’s a golf bag.”

“Yep, that’s my golf bag.”

“Here’s your roof system, Mr. Knapp. And that’s your pump house back yonder,” Richard Walters called. “Mr. Knapp! Here’s your mailbox!” Knapp shook his head. “My mailbox? Any mail?”

The developer said he hasn’t decided whether to rebuild on his oceanfront lot. “The thing for people to remember is if they came to Charleston before and loved a particular row of homes, it’s still there,” said Barbara Vaughn, spokesman for the city of Charleston. “Most of the damage is fixable. The historic fabric of the city of Charleston is intact. We are ready for company.”