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Show 1 ; j F A i .... ' -" fc- . '...15.1 ' ' ' ! ' " J-.r I L ,i ' ' t i I 1 X ' - I . . ,-'" . - ' - ' ' , ' . . . , - 1 --"''' . vv'-"' - . -" ' ' ' ;v Connie and Amanda spent the night the hurricane struck, huddled in the kitchen of the home of Connie's husband Eric's, aunt. The old home rocked on its foundation throughout the storm, but it withstood the winds. When Connie was able to return to her condominium they had been asked ask-ed to evacuate, she found huge trees strewn across the driveway, and a neighbors boat smashed smash-ed by flying trees. Only one out of every 10 trees was left standing when the storm was over. Huge trees, like this one Amanda is standing in front of, were uprooted, and thrown through the air like toothpicks by the winds of the hurricane. After the storm there was no electricity, and Connie had to stand in line to buy food and water. The shelves were stripped bare of candles and batteries. Bountiful native survives wrath of Hurricane Hugo, learns lesson h 1 i j 1 ' ; By JUDY JENSEN Editor i For a transplanted Woods Cross High School graduate and her family, fami-ly, the night Hurricane Hugo struck their Charleston, South Carolina home in September was terrifying. Connie Chxistensen Campbell, a Bountiful native, and her three-year-old daughter Amanda, got their first up close and personal view of a hurricane, and according to Connie, she hopes it's their last. Connie's parents, Faye and George Christensen of Bountiful, anxiously watched the news as reports df the oncoming hurricane began to be broadcast. "We saw the news of the tracking track-ing of the hurricane, and we knew Connie and her husband Eric were right in its path. We had not ever visited the area since Connie had gotten married and moved there, so we didn't realize the coast was so flat, and that there was no natural barrier to stop the storm, said Faye. She said she called Connie who told her that they had been advised to be prepared by having food in the house as the storm was due to hit in about 24 hours. Connie went to work and decided to go to the grocery store at lunch time to pick up some food. "When she got there the shelves were nearly bare. She was only able to get a few canned goods," saidFaye. Residents were told to turn off their power, ,take all items they could upstairs, barricade their windows and to fill their tubs with water. By the time Connie got home from work, the storm's intensity had increased. All Charleston Connie Christensen Campbell, a former Woods Cross High School graduate, and her two-year-old daughter Amanda survived sur-vived the wrath of Hurricane Hugo in Charleston, South Carolina in September. Connie said the experience left her knowing how valuable certain items can be. residents were told to evacuate the area and seek refuge inland. Eric is a fireman and was on 24-hour alert. He could not leave Charleston. Connie and Amanda said a hasty goodbye and traveled inland to Eric's grandmother's home. "Connie had called to tell me what she was doing, but after she hung up I realized Eric's grandmother's grand-mother's home was a trailer. I knew that was dangerous. As soon as I thought she might be there, I called Connie, and by that time they had been advised to evacuate all trailer homes. Connie, Amanda and Grandma Campbell headed for higher ground. Their sanctuary for the duration of the storm was found in an aunt's home one-half mile away. It was an older structure, and had withstood raging winds in the past. The foursome settled in for what Connie described as "The longest night of my life. At 1 a.m. the hurricane hit. All night long the winds howled around the old house. Unable to sleep, the three generations of the Campbell family huddled together in the kitchen kit-chen in the dark where they tried to talk, over the sound of the raging wind. A large tree stood just outside the home, and each time they heard a limb crack they felt sure it would crash through the roof. All through the long night the house groaned and moaned against the force of the winds. "Connie said she could actually ac-tually feel the house moving on its foundation," said Faye. At the first light of dawn they could see that the limb had broken off, but it had fallen across the driveway, and missed the house. Later in the day the winds subsided, sub-sided, and changed to a dull roar. Connie agreed to drive Grandma Campbell to her trailer home to assess the damage. It took them two hours to complete the one-half mile trip. Trees had been uprooted and were lying across the roads. In some places the roads had been destroyed. Connie described the scene as one from an old war movie just after a bomb had hit. Everything Every-thing was destroyed. Miraculously, Mrs. Campbell's trailer had not been damaged, and she was able to move back home right away. Two-days later, Connie was advised ad-vised it would be safe for her and Amanda to go back home. She had ;no idea what to expect when she drove to their condominium. She found the journey back home to be a difficult one. Many of the roads had been closed and many bridges were out which necessitated a circuitous route. As she neared her home, Connie noticed that many windows were broken. Trees had been hurled through the air like projectiles pro-jectiles smashing into the windows along the way. She was amazed that her condominium con-dominium complex had sustained very litde damage. There were broken windows, but the buildings had withstood the storm. One casualty of the storm Was1" a neighbor's boat. He had secured it to a lamppost in the complex courtyard. cour-tyard. The lamppost was still standing stan-ding but the boat was smashed and buried by a mountain of trees. It took the owned two weeks to dig it out. Although only a few lives were lost due to the storm itself, many died in the aftermath due to falling limbs, and encounters with downed electrical wires. Connie found the calm after the storm to be the biggest big-gest challenge. All schools and businesses were closed as the towns began to dig out of the debris left by the storm. Food was not a problem for the first few days. Many restaurant owners cooked the meat that would have spoiled due to lack of refrigeration, and served it free of charge. Water was the most valuable, and most scarce commodity. It was impossible im-possible to buy water, and there was none being pumped into the area. Connie found her days to be like those of the Europeans in their war-torn war-torn cities. Each day she would stand in line for many hours to get a bottle of water that had been trucked truck-ed in. From the water line she would go to the grocery store where the lines began again. No one was allowed inside the stores as there was no electricity. The store owners would come to the front door, ask the next person in line what they wanted, get those items if they were available, and complete the transaction. Connie said that during the time they waited in line, tempers flared, and there were many fights for position posi-tion in line. Eric was on duty 24-hours a day, and at night Connie and Amanda were alone in the dark. There was no light anywhere. The city looked like it would have had there been a black-out. "It was just like a war,' ' Connie told her mother. All over the city there were reports of looting. Connie had a small barbe- que grill, and each night she would have to bring it inside or it would have been stolen. Seemingly insignificant items became very valuable. A Coleman stove, or lantern, candles, and batteries bat-teries were like gold to the people. Connie tried to purchase some of these items, but there were none for sale. She was only able to get a-'few small candles, .which she burned T sparingly. Learning of their daughter's plight, the Christensen's began to try to find a way to get Connie and Ainanda to Utah. There were no buses, no trains, and no means of transportation. The Charleston airport air-port was closed. Four days later Connie was able to catch a ride into Columbia where she and Amanda boarded a plane for Utah. After a two-week respite with her parents, Connie returned to the "war- zone. She found she was no longer living alone. The cockroaches had moved inside. All of their natural habitats had been destroyed in the storm so they had found new surroundings. It took three separate fumigations to rid her home of the invaders. Most of the electricity had been restored, and life slowly returned to some semblance of normal. The Christen sens visited Charleston on May 1. They found that many of the homes still had , large piles of debris stacked in front. Mass clean-ups were still underway, and only one in every 10 trees had survived the storm, but the city was functioning, and the people were working together to rebuild the area. Eric and Connie had learned a valuable lesson in being prepared. In fact they may have been "over-prepared. "over-prepared. As they packed to return to Utah, Connie opened a large box and said to Faye, "Mom, take some of these batteries with you or they will go bad. I think I bought too many," she laughed. |