HUGO'S legacy.

TEN YEARS LATER, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA. FINDS THE HURRICANE THAT "CHANGED EVERYBODY'S LIFE," CHANGED ITS FOREST - FOR THE BETTER.

When Hurricane Hugo slammed into Charleston, South Carolina, on the night of September 21, 1989, it became - as one observer noted in the Charleston Post and Courier - "an historical marker, a point in time by which we can measure our lives. Because it changed everybody's life. Everybody's."

"Everyone knew there was something ominous about this hurricane," says Danny Burbage, Charleston's superintendent of urban forestry. He flew home from a family vacation when news accounts showed Hugo approaching the Virgin Islands.

Longtime mayor Joseph P. Riley was overseeing the boarding-up of city buildings as Burbage arrived. Riley had planned for this eventuality, readying citizens for the possibility of evacuation and dividing the city into three sections for disaster response. Burbage was placed in charge of one section.

At a site considered safe and equipped with tree-trimming equipment, front-end loaders, and a volunteer staff ready to begin work at first light, "we battened down the hatches and waited," Burbage says.

Along Charleston's outlying Ashley River Road - home to three of Charleston's famous plantations, Drayton Hall, Magnolia Plantation, and Middleton Place - Middleton's horticulturist Sidney Frazier made a note on his desk pad at 2:34 p.m.: "Wind beginning to blow but nothing unusual."

A few miles north of Charleston on Route 17, the rising wind rustled 60- to 80-foot-tall longleaf pines throughout the 252,201-acre Francis Marion National Forest. The stands were so dense then that sight distance into the forest was less than 100 feet.

By 9 p.m., ensconced on the second floor of his building in a windowless interior room, Burbage stared out toward the waterfront as the outside corridor's Plexiglas windows swelled, bubbled, then burst, sending in sheeting rain as humidity rose and barometric pressure fell. Walking out on the roof to look down East Bay Street as the storm started to build, Burbage watched transformers blow one by one in a succession of streaking blue flames. "I've never seen the power of nature like that," he says. "It was frightening."

Relentless winds and rising waters became more vicious, but at midnight all fell still as the storm's eye passed. At Middleton Place, Frazier emerged from his shelter to note, "It was eerie . . . so still, no movement, almost like being deceased."

By daybreak, with the storm over, Mayor Riley pronounced it "a degree of devastation unprecedented in anybody's living memory." Six people died, dozens of houses and buildings collapsed citywide, others afire from natural gas leaks or torn from their foundations and swept out to sea. Electricity was out everywhere. The bridge to Isle of Palms and Sullivan's Island had been ripped from its approaches and dangled in the water. Boats in marinas had been pushed around like matchsticks. They were scattered across roadways and marshes; two rested in the median in front of Charleston Police Headquarters.

At Middleton Plantation many trees were toppled, including one of the nation's largest eastern redcedars, Middleton's oldest southern red oak, and two 90-year-old tea olives. At Drayton Hall, a National Historic Landmark dating to 1738, 60 percent of the trees were downed in public areas. At Magnolia Plantation, owner J. Dayton Hastie crawled through the overarching debris assessing the heartbreaking $1 million damage to his gardens. Among the losses: 250-year-old cypress trees, topped; the world's largest broadleaf holly; and a giant California redwood.

Francis Marion National Forest resembled a war zone. Hugo's winds had wiped out two-thirds of its endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers; felled a billion board feet of lumber, effectively ending the forest's commercial timber production; and destroyed its seed orchard and most recreational facilities.

Back in Charleston, Danny Burbage and crew emerged at dawn, cutting their way down the street. "My first impression was that the Civil War had been fought here again - there were craters in the ground where trees had been. It was impossible to quantify the city's tree loss. They were mixed with roofs, utility poles, and all sorts of things. I felt this 300-year-old city where I was born and where my family had been for 300 years was destroyed. But there was also this sense that 'we've got to get this done!'"

Working seven days a week, 13 hours a day for the first four or five weeks, Burbage's crew cleared a path along the main roads to allow emergency equipment through, then worked with local utilities to clear access to electric lines. Next they created passageways curb to curb, then worked on public areas, such as parks.

In terms of the trees, exotics like fruit trees were the hardest hit. Storm survivors - including palmettos, live oaks, cypress, and hackberry - did well because their genetic precursors had endured hurricanes before.

"Prior to Hugo we were planting 500 trees a year," Burbage says. "In 1990 we planted none because we were so busy. But in 1991 we planted 1,500 trees: live oaks, palmetto, and crepe myrtle." One-third of a $150,000 grant from AMERICAN FORESTS, local partner Low Country ReLeaf, and Texaco was spent on city street and park trees.

"Overwhelmingly," Burbage says, "Charlestonians said they missed trees more than anything."

Charleston added an urban forester in 1992 and developed a tree inventory. Over time, after removing the obvious remnants of Hugo, the city removed low-priority trees that had begun to decay. Today, in a reversal of national statistics, Charleston plants four trees for every one removed.

The plantations faced their regenerating challenges with the same aggressive spirit. At Middleton Place, horticulturist Frazier quickly began calculating how to get the plantation back up and running. Within three or four days the main area had reopened. "Today, I'm extremely pleased. The trees have recovered almost completely, and we've continued to replant trees and shrubs, maintaining them so that we're constantly ready for another storm." As with the other plantations, most of the live oaks stood, losing only some limbs.

Nor would visitors to Magnolia Place know the hurricane had wreaked such damage there. "For every tree that went down, I planted the same kind. For 300 years our garden has had the same species," Hastie says. "The garden changes but stays the same."

Meanwhile, Dayton Hall, now looked to as a resource in disaster planning, gladly shares its experience with museums nationwide, stressing pre- and post-disaster planning and emphasizing archeological sensitivity.

"The major problem was remembering how the landscape looked before," says John Kidder, its superintendent of buildings and grounds. "This was critical when faced with replanting and spending resources trying to save damaged trees." They created a tree inventory and survey of important trees and continually update it. Adds George McDaniel, Drayton Hall's director, "We also incorporated Hugo into our nature trails, leaving huge downed pines as teaching tools."

As for the Francis Marion, US Forest Service forester John DuPre says, "Hugo pointed out the effects of management. Before a storm you need a good age-class distribution because the young stands survived well and are needed across the forest. The post-storm lesson was that you can recover ecosystems with a good combination of planting and burning." As Francis Marion did with its longleaf pine plantings, aided by Global ReLeaf; and its total burning, which helped an endangered ecosystem that was close to disappearing in the Southeast. With Forest Service personnel providing 1,400 artificial nesting cavities, the red-cockaded woodpecker has returned to nearly pre-Hugo levels.

Perhaps Danny Burbage sums the Hugo experience up best: "Since Charleston was founded in 1670, it's been through malaria, pirates, the English, the Civil War, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and Hugo. We remain resolved that this is a beautiful place to be."

PREPARING FOR A NATURAL DISASTER

For homeowners, check your trees every year at the beginning of storm season. Go outside and look up, checking for dieback, cracked or dead branches, or hanging branches that could hit the house or power lines. Have a licensed professional do your pruning.

For communities, disaster readiness is more complicated. AMERICAN FORESTS' CITYgreen software can help cities start by knowing what trees they have, their value in city services such as stormwater retention and air pollution removal, and where more trees would enhance those values. Consider these paints when preparing for a possible disaster (compiled from Storms Over The Urban Forest by Lisa Burban, urban forester, US Forest Service, Northeastern Area, and John W. Andresen, Department of Forestry, University of Illinois): PLANNING: The type will vary, depending on a community's size, budget, and staff, but planning allows time to anticipate, prioritize activities and needs, and make the hast use of staff and equipment. It also allows for effective use of partnerships within and outside the community.

MITIGATION: Eliminate or reduce the impact of future disasters by:

* removing hazard trees

* pruning young trees to prevent weak v-crotches

* monitoring construction activities and their impact on trees

GOOD MANAGEMENT

* plant the right tree in the right place

* minimize root impact

* properly prune and maintain trees; protect valuable ones

* develop a salvage plan

KNOW YOUR PRIORITIES

* know who to call when you exceed your local capacity to respond

* maintain good communications internally, externally, with media, and citizens

* Remember that both traditional and nontraditional partnerships are critical (During Hugo, volunteers ranged from Montana lumberjacks to out-of-state Mennonites with oxen.)

* Remember the people (An act as small as righting a tree gave Charlestonians hope during Hugo cleanup.)

- Nancy Anne Dawe

RESTORING RED-COCKADED HABITAT

American Forests has partnered with Francis Marion National Forest to plant 429,000 longleaf pine across 600 acres to both restore the native forest decimated by Hurricane Hugo and rebuild habitat for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. The Global ReLeaf Forest site is designated a "Lorax Forest," after the Dr. Suess book, with special gifts for children who become Lorax helpers.

Forester John DuPre has described the partnership thusly: "Without the program the birds would have dropped down to a very poor level. It would've taken 50 years or more to get back to the previous level."

The 55,000 trees planted this year will help the forest recover from Hugo and an April 1997 wildfire. You can help. Every dollar donated to this project will plant a longleaf seedling. Call 800/545-TREE or plant online at www.americanforests.org.

Nancy Dawe is a freelance photojournalist from Seabrook Island, South Carolina.