Hurricane Hugo

Shortly after this trip, an event was about to happen that would provide an opportunity for the King's Carpenters to help folk close to home. On September 21, 1989 Hurricane Hugo was on its way to the coast of the North or South Carolina. Hazel did not want to stay at the beach and we chose to come to Charlotte and keep Betsy and Kati while Robin and Glenn went to Raleigh, NC to attend a weekend for educators thinking all would be well. We came to Charlotte and settled in and were ready to have a few days with our two grandkids. We stayed up until midnight to see what Hugo was going to do and wondered if it would come inland near our beach home. At midnight all power went out in Charleston, SC and we decided to go to bed because Hugo would only come ashore for a few miles and then back out somewheres along the coast of North Carolina. Little did we know what Hugo had in mind for its travels! About four in the morning Glenn knocked on my door and ask me if we were going to sleep through Hugo's visit to Charlotte. I got up as fast as I could and boy was the wind blowing and we could see that all of the trees were bent almost to the ground. All of a sudden it got really calm and the winds stopped blowing. We all thought it was all over but just in a little while it started again and this time it was really bad! We saw some green lights as transformers blew out.

When daylight came we could see trees and power lines down everywhere but Glenn and Robin did not have any damage to their home just no power. I got to thinking about the four great big oak trees near Pam and Davids house and envisioned them all down on their house. I told Hazel that I was going to try to get over and help them and would only know how they fared the storm by going there. I started out on the five mile trip and with all of the damage it took me one hour to make the trip and I only was able to get to within about one half of a mile. I ran the rest of the way and was relieved when I got to the house I saw all of the trees around their house were standing tall and was not blown down on the house. However, they did have about twenty five big oak trees to blow down in the woods near the house but no damage was done to their home. This is another way that God was looking after my family.

We told Glenn and Robin to go on to Raleigh to the conference and we would take care of everything. We had a freezer full of frozen food and a camp stove and plenty of gas for the stove. Every one's power was out but Pam had a gas water heater and city water, both were working. With Glenn's gas stove and Pam's water we did real well. Betsy and Kati liked the camp cooking and all the candles as we did our best to make do with what we had. Glenn and Robin made it to the conference, had a great time, and returned to find that all was well. Little did we all know that for the next two weeks they were to be without power. It even took longer for some others.

We went back to the beach to find that Hugo did not do any damage to our home only a few very small limbs down and part of a couple shingles from the roof.  Listen to me tell this story.