Hurricane Hugo, September 10-22, 1989.

NOAA pronounced 1989's Hurricane Hugo as the strongest storm to strike the United States in 20 years. The NWS, through its National Hurricane Center (NHC), reported that Hugo smashed into the Charleston, South Carolina, area minutes before midnight, September 22, with winds estimated at 135 mph in Bulls Bay north of the city. Four days earlier, the storm crossed the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico with equal force. During the hurricane's approach to the Leeward Islands, a NOAA research aircraft east of Guadeloupe measured winds of 160 mph and a central pressure of 27.1 inches. This qualified hugo as a Category 5 storm - the highest - on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. The storm was rated as Category 4 when it pounded the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and South Carolina. Although rainfall was moderate in the Caribbean and on the U.S. mainland, Hugo produced record storm tides of up to 20 feet in South Carolina. The hurricane was the nation's costliest in terms of monetary losses but not in lives lost. Forty-nine directly-related storm fatalities were recorded, 26 in the US and its Caribbean islands. Twenty-three died in other Leeward Islands. NHC estimated more that $9 billion in damages and economic losses on the mainland, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The mainland alone accounted for $7 billion of the total