Hurricane Hugo

On the evening of September 21, 1989, Hurricane Hugo made landfall on South Carolina’s shores with winds of 138 miles per hour. The equivalent of four years of harvestable timber, with an estimated value of over $1 billion, was destroyed in fewer than 24 hours. Extreme wind gusts caused most of the damage to trees. Salt water from the storm surge, however, killed large numbers of trees in poorly drained areas. Approximately 4.45 million acres of forest were damaged by wind and water from the storm. Only about 12 percent of the damaged trees were salvage logged, leaving a large population of trees with an elevated risk of insect attack or fire outbreaks.

Hurricanes are a regular, albeit unpredictable, part of the southern forest ecosystem and have been shaping forest dynamics for many millenia. Given sufficient time, southern forests will typically recover from hurricane damage. For forest owners, however, the economic impacts of hurricanes can be devastating.

Forest management practices can affect the way in which hurricanes impact forests. Thinning, for example, is a common practice that removes some trees to leave older, taller trees in a less dense stand. These older, thinned stands suffered more damage from Hugo than did more densely stocked stands. In addition, hurricane frequency and intensity may be changing. Scientists expect hurricanes to become more intense, with stronger winds and higher storm surges. These factors can increase the damage hurricanes cause to forests.

One important lesson of Hurricane Hugo was that species confined to a small number of protected areas were vulnerable, even when their populations were vibrant. Prior to Hugo, South Carolina had a very healthy population of endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers, the second largest population in the nation. The hurricane killed more than two-thirds of the South Carolina population and destroyed 87 percent of the woodpeckers’ nests. Hugo also destroyed half of the old-growth pine habitat these woodpeckers need to survive. Species of concern are vulnerable to infrequent but catastrophic events, an important issue that should be addressed in conservation planning for such species.

Another important lesson from Hurricane Hugo was the need for a forest disaster response plan. Nearly 25 percent of South Carolina’s damaged forests required reforestation, but by mid-1990 only 20 percent of non-industrial private forest owners had made plans to reforest.