1989 Hurricane Hugo - September 1989. Category 4 hurricane devastates SC and NC with ~ 20 foot storm surge and severe wind damage after hitting PR and the U.S. Virgin Islands; over $9.0 (13.9) billion (about $7.1 (10.9) billion in Carolinas); 86 deaths (57--U.S. mainland, 29--U.S. Islands).

Hurricane Hugo was a powerful Cape Verde hurricane that caused widespread damage and loss of life in Guadeloupe, Saint Croix, Puerto Rico, and the Southeast United States. It formed over the eastern Atlantic near the Cape Verde Islands on September 9, 1989. Hugo moved thousands of miles across the Atlantic, rapidly strengthening to briefly attain category 5 hurricane strength on its journey. It later crossed over Guadeloupe and St. Croix on September 17 and 18 as a category 4 hurricane. Weakening slightly more, it passed over Puerto Rico as a strong category 3 hurricane. Further weakening occurred several hours after re-emerging into the Atlantic, becoming downgraded to a category 2 hurricane. However, it re-strengthened into a category 4 hurricane before making landfall just slightly north of Charleston, on Isle of Palms on September 22 with 140 mph sustained winds (gusts to more than 160 mph). It had devolved to a remnant low near Lake Erie by the next day. As of 2016, Hurricane Hugo is the most intense tropical cyclone to strike the East Coast north of Florida since 1898.

Hurricane Hugo caused 34 fatalities (most by electrocution or drowning) in the Caribbean and 27 in South Carolina, left nearly 100,000 homeless, and resulted in $9.47 billion (1989 USD) in damage overall, making it the most damaging hurricane ever recorded at the time. Of this total, $7 billion was from the United States and Puerto Rico, ranking it as the costliest storm to impact the country at the time. Since 1989, however, it has been surpassed by multiple storms and now ranks as the seventeenth costliest in the United States.

Hurricane Hugo

Category 5 major hurricane (SSHWS/NWS)

Hurricane Hugo near peak intensity on September 15

Formed September 10, 1989

Dissipated September 25, 1989

(Extratropical after September 22)

Highest winds 1-minute sustained:160 mph (260 km/h)

Lowest pressure 918 mbar (hPa); 27.11 inHg

Fatalities 100 total (estimated)

Damage $9.47 billion (1989 USD)

Areas affected Cape Verde, Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Turks

and Caicos Islands, Bahamas, East Coast of the United

States, Atlantic Canada, U.S. Virgin Islands

Part of the 1989 Atlantic hurricane season

Map plotting the track and intensity of the storm, according to the Saffir–Simpson scale

Hurricane Hugo originated as a tropical wave (which also spawned Hurricane Raymond), which moved off the west coast of Africa on September 9. Soon after moving off the African coast, it was classified as Tropical Depression Eleven southeast of the Cape Verde Islands. Winds were initially 30 mph (48 km/h) but they reached 35 mph (56 km/h) soon after. Moving on a steady westward track at 18 knots (21 mph, 33 k/h), Tropical Depression Eleven steadily intensified, becoming Tropical Storm Hugo on September 11 at 1800 UTC. On September 13, Hugo rapidly intensified, and reached hurricane strength 1265 miles (2035 km) east of the Leeward Islands. A low-pressure area to the south caused Hugo to gradually turn to the west-northwest, while the storm was slowly strengthening. Shortly after, Hurricane Hugo began to rapidly intensify; 24 hours after it was classified as a hurricane, it had become a category 2 hurricane. After this bout of rapid strengthening, Hugo began to rapidly deepen, becoming a major hurricane early the next morning.[1]

After becoming a major hurricane, and maintaining Category 3 strength for a day, Hugo reached Category 4 strength, and began to rapidly intensify again, while moving slowly west-northwest. Becoming a Category 5 Hurricane, its maximum sustained winds had increased to 160 mph (260 km/h) and the minimum central pressure had dropped to 918 millibars (27.1 inHg). In the early hours of September 17, Hugo crossed in between Guadeloupe and Montserrat while its winds were near 140 mph (230 km/h), when hurricane-force winds extended only 45 mi (72 km) from the center. Less than 24 hours later, it made another landfall on the island of St. Croix, with the same intensity. That day, Hurricane Hugo also made landfalls in Puerto Rico, in Vieques and Fajardo, though it was slightly weaker.

Hugo began to accelerate to the northwest soon after exiting eastern Puerto Rico. On September 18, the hurricane was located a couple of hundred miles east of Florida when it began a more northward track, in response to a steering flow associated with an upper-level low pressure area that was moving across the southeastern United States. Hugo then began to strengthen again, and it reached a secondary peak at 1800 UTC on September 21 as a Category 4 hurricane. The maximum sustained winds were 140 mph (230 km/h), while the minimum central pressure was 944 millibars (27.9 inHg). On September 22 at 0400 UTC, Hugo made landfall on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, at its secondary peak as a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale with 140-mph sustained winds and a central pressure of 934 millibars (27.6 inHg).

The storm continued inland, and weakened to a very strong tropical storm as it passed over Charlotte, North Carolina.[5] Hugo continued on the weakening trend and weakened to a tropical storm later on the same day over central North Carolina. The storm continued weakening as it moved inland, and on September 23, the storm weakened to a remnant low. Its remnant low continued to accelerate north, and it reached the far northern Atlantic before dissipating on September 25.

Christmas Coastal Snowstorm:

December 22-24, 1989 Wx.gov > NWS Wilmington, NC > Christmas Coastal Snowstorm: Dec. 22-24, 1989

The largest snowstorm in history for the Southeast U.S. coast occurred just before Christmas 1989. This storm broke all-time snowfall records in Wilmington (15.3 inches), Cape Hatteras (13.3 inches), Charleston (8 inches), and Savannah (3.6 inches). Measurable snow fell as far south as Jacksonville and Tallahassee, Florida, and snow flurries were reported in Tampa and near Sarasota.

In addition to record amounts of snow unprecedentedly cold temperatures accompanied the storm. All-time record lows were smashed across coastal North Carolina with temperatures falling to -4 in New Bern and to 0 in Wilmington. Arctic air flooded south into Florida as well with record lows observed all across the peninsula. Even Key West, FL reached 44 degrees tying the coldest December temperature ever seen in that nearly-tropical location. The Florida citrus industry suffered severe injury with newspaper reports indicating "nearly total destruction of commercial citrus growing north of Interstate 4..."

Click the map for a larger version with totals from Virginia through Florida, December 22-24, 1989. Data from NWS & FAA stations and NWS cooperative observers.

North Carolina South Carolina Georgia Florida

Longwood 19.5" Loris, 2 S 14.5" Cairo 6" Live Oak 3"

Wilmington, 7 N 17.5" Myrtle Beach 14" Sapelo Island 4.7" Mayport 2.9"

Hofmann Forest 16.5" Conway 13.5" Fort Stewart 4.3" Jacksonville Beach 2.5"

Cherry Point MCAS 16" Brookgreen Gardens 11.3" Quitman, 2 NW 4" Jasper 2"

Wilmington airport 15.3" Givhans Ferry, 2 ESE

10.1" Brunswick airport 4" Jacksonville NAS 1"

Southport, 5 N 15" Charleston airport 8" Atkinson, 2 W 4" Monticello 1"

Cape Hatteras airport 13.3" Marion 8" Savannah airport 3.6" Tallahassee airport 1"

Bayboro, 3 E 13" Andrews 8" Douglas 3.3" Madison 1"

New River MCAS 12.7" Lake City 7.5" Brooklet, 1 W 3" Jacksonville airport 0.8"

Cedar Island 12" Beaufort MCAS 6.5" Patterson 3" Myakka River St. Park

T

Willard, 4 SW 11" Dillon 6" Surrency 2.7" Daytona Beach airport

T

Belhaven, 3 NE 10.3" Summerville, 4 W 5.8" Claxton 2.5" Crescent City T

Whiteville, 7 NW 10.2" Beaufort 5" Newington 2.5" Gainesville airport T

Trenton 10.2" Kingstree 4.8" Alma Bacon airport

2.3" Tampa airport T

Clinton, 2 NE 10" Florence airport 4.3" Glennville 2" Clermont T

Warsaw, 5 E 10" Walterboro, 1 SW 4.2" Homerville 2" Whiting Field NAS T

New Bern airport 8.8" Yemassee 3.6" Colquitt, 2 W 2" Apalachicola airport T

Washington, 4 W 8" Effingham 3" Waycross airport 1.6" Pensacola airport T

Goldsboro, S. J. AFB 8" Hampton, 1 S 3" Metter 1.5" Crestview airport T

Kinston airport 8" Bamberg 2" Preston 1" Pensacola NAS T

Williamston, 1 E 6.5" Holly Hill 2" Moultrie, 2 ESE 1"

Plymouth, 5 E 6" Orangeburg 2" Valdosta, 3 E 0.8" Virginia

Edenton 6" Wedgefield 1" Abbeville T

Kinston 6" Columbia, USC T Americus, 3 SW T Back Bay NWR 1"

Dunn, 4 NW 6" Columbia airport T Ailey T Suffolk, Lake Kilby 0.5"

Greenville 5" Pee Dee T Montezuma T Emporia, 1 WNW 0.3"

Manteo airport 3" Cheraw T Columbus airport T Oceana NAS T

Fayetteville, Pope AFB

2.7" Springfield T Gibson T Norfolk airport T

Tarboro, 1 S 2" Pelion, 4 NW T Norfolk NAS T

Scotland Neck 1.5"

Smithfield 1" Laurinburg 1"

Jackson 0.8" Roanoke Rapids T

Raleigh, NCSU T Sanford, 8 NE T Neuse, 2 NE T

The evolution of this historic event followed the general pattern for significant snow in the eastern Carolinas. The first hint of low pressure along the stalled arctic front showed up during the early morning hours of December 23rd on the Florida east coast. (Typically during a significant winter storm for the eastern Carolinas low pressure develops in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and is already well-developed once it reaches the Atlantic) From the Florida east coast the low followed a typical path northeastward a few hundred miles off the Southeast coast of the United States. Due to the extremely cold air in place snow fell with air temperatures in the teens in Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Wilmington. How often could you warm the air by 10 to 15 degrees and still get snow here? Unfortunately two deaths were attributed to this storm in Camden County, NC, while another man died of a heart attack while shoveling snow in Wilmington. Below are surface maps hand-analyzed every 12 hours using historic surface observations. Temperatures and dewpoints are shown in the upper-left and lower-left of each station plot. Weather and visibility (if applicable) is plotted in the center-left. Station pressure in millibars and tenths (last three digits only) is plotted in the upper-right. Wind direction is shown by the direction of the flag with the number of lines indicating wind speed; a half-line indicates 5 knots while a full line indicates 10 knots. Surface pressure is analyzed in black with fronts and troughs indicated.

7:00 AM EST December 22, 1989 (22 Dec 1200 UTC)

An arctic cold front moved through the Carolinas on December 21st and by the morning of the 22nd had pushed into central Florida. Very cold air had already spread across the Carolinas and the remainder of the Southeastern states ahead of a very strong 1055 millibar (31.15 inches Hg.) arctic high pressure centered over Nebraska. Temperatures across North and South Carolina were in the teens and 20s with single digits in the mountains and near the Virginia border.

In the upper levels of the atmosphere a broad trough covered the eastern half of North America. Cross-polar flow was established from Siberia across the Arctic Ocean into Canada and the eastern United States. Although temperatures were cold across the Carolinas and Georgia, the coldest temperatures relative to normal were still farther west across Texas and the Ozarks.

The upper level disturbance that would be responsible for developing the great snowstorm was centered near the Colorado/New Mexico border and moving southeastward toward Texas. Local forecasts for the next couple of days were for bitterly cold temperatures but no precipitation as arctic high pressure was expected to keep moisture out of the area.

7:00 PM EST December 22, 1989 (23 Dec 0000 UTC) The upper level disturbance was moving into central Texas and was sharpening the upper level trough along the Gulf coast states. Humid southwest winds developed over the top of the arctic air across Florida, Georgia and coastal South Carolina. This flow of moisture led to an expanding area of rain across central Florida. Where the air was colder to the north, snow or mixed precipitation began to fall across northern Florida and parts of coastal Georgia and South Carolina. Rain changed over to sleet in Jacksonville, FL just after 6 p.m.; freezing rain began in St. Simon's Island, GA around 7 p.m.; and snow began to fall in Savannah and Charleston around 7 p.m.

A very chilly night was in store for the Carolinas with low temperatures mainly in the teens, with single digits in northwestern North Carolina. The Wilmington Star-News reported that Carolina Power & Light (the local electric utility) set a new record for peak usage at 8,100 megawatts. The Robesonian newspaper reported Public Service (now called PSNC Energy) had record-high demand on its natural gas system in the state as well. Some Wilmington residents lost water service due to frozen pipes.

7:00 AM EST December 23, 1989 (23 Dec 1200 UTC) Low pressure developed along the arctic front along the Florida east coast. Counter-clockwise winds around the low pushed the arctic front south across Florida with cold temperatures surging southward across the entire peninsula. The flow of humid southwest winds increased above the arctic air as the upper level disturbance reached the lower Mississippi Valley. Light to moderate snow was expanding northward along the coast. Snow fell in Myrtle Beach and Wilmington most of the night; snow began in Cape Hatteras around midnight. Along the transition zone between rain and snow across central Florida a narrow zone of sleet and freezing rain continued. In Wilmington and Myrtle Beach 5 inches of snow had fallen by 7 a.m., with 3 inches at Hatteras, 2 inches in Charleston, and 1 inch in New Bern and Savannah. It has been noted that in most significant snowstorms for the eastern Carolinas the surface low tracks very near 32° north latitude, 75° west longitude, about 215 miles southeast of Cape Fear. The low missed this benchmark point to the south during the day but still dropped heavy snow locally due to its track almost northward along the Carolina coast. Across Texas and Louisiana this was the coldest morning of the historic cold wave. In Houston the air temperature dropped to 7 degrees, setting a record low for the date. This was the only time since 1930 Houston has recorded a temperature in the single digits. New Orleans recorded a record-low temperature of 11 degrees, with 9 in nearby Slidell, and 5 in Shreveport.

7:00 PM EST December 23, 1989 (24 Dec 0000 UTC) Low pressure continued to intensify along the arctic front a few hundred miles off the South Carolina coast. Moderate to occasionally heavy snow continued along the North and South Carolina coast with near-blizzard conditions across eastern North Carolina. Weather conditions at 7 p.m. at Cape Hatteras included moderate snow and blowing snow with a visibility of one-eighth of a mile and north winds sustained at 28 mph gusting to 39 mph. Arctic air continued to blast south behind the low across Florida with snow flurries reported in locations as far south as Tampa and Daytona Beach! At the Jacksonville, FL NWS office 0.8 inches of snow fell, the second highest storm total on record for this subtropical city. Just across town at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station 1 inch of snow fell, while at Jacksonville Beach 2.5 inches was recorded. The high temperature this day in Charleston was 20° F and in Savannah was only 22° F; those are the coldest high temperatures for any day during the 20th century and the coldest daily high ever recorded in Charleston.

The Wilmington Star-News reported 300 car accidents across the Cape Fear area and power outages had affected 3,000 people in New Hanover county alone. The Wilmington airport was closed, and hospitals in Wilmington were requesting anyone with four-wheel drive vehicles to volunteer to transport doctors and nurses to work. The snow depth in Wilmington and Hatteras reached 8 inches, 7 inches in Charleston, 5 inches in New Bern, and 3 inches in Savannah, with more to fall...

7:00 AM EST December 24, 1989 (24 Dec 1200 UTC) The low had moved northeastward to a position a few hundred miles off the North Carolina coast. Snow piled up deeper and deeper across eastern North Carolina with 13 inches reported on the ground in Wilmington at 7 a.m. On the Outer Banks at Cape Hatteras enough warm air wrapped back around the northern semicircle of the storm to change precipitation over to a mix of rain and snow for about 12 hours, reducing storm-total snowfall amounts here. Life along the Carolina coast ground to a halt as extraordinary amounts of snow overwhelmed the modest amount of snow removal equipment. Snow depth at 7 a.m. was reported to be 14 inches at the Myrtle Beach airport, 8 inches in Charleston and 7 inches in New Bern.

This was the coldest morning of the cold wave across the interior Southeastern states. Temperatures in Talladega reached 1 degree, 4 in Birmingham, 6 in Atlanta, 9 in Crestview (Florida), 11 in Pensacola, and 13 in Tallahassee. It was absolutely brutal in the North Carolina mountains with -18 degrees recorded in Banner Elk, -7 on Grandfather Mountain, and -5 in Blowing Rock.

7:00 PM EST December 24, 1989 (25 Dec 0000 UTC) Low pressure moved away from the North Carolina coast with dry and very cold arctic air spreading well offshore. With plenty of snow on the ground from northern Florida through the coastal Carolinas, clearing skies and subsiding winds allowed record-cold temperatures to develop later this night. In Wilmington the all-time record low was smashed by five degrees as the temperature dropped to 0 early Christmas morning. New Bern, NC also set a new all-time record low of -4 degrees. Other notable low temperatures reported on Christmas morning 1989 included -5 degrees at the New River MCAS near Jacksonville, -3 degrees in Southport, -3 degrees in Elizabethtown, -2 degrees in Whiteville, and 0 degrees in Marion, SC. The extremely cold temperatures froze and burst water pipes around the

region. According to the Wilmington Star-News, a State of Emergency was declared in Wilmington as the municipal water system was stressed due to over 300 burst pipes draining the city's water reserves. The basement of the Cape Fear Hotel apartments became filled with 50,000 gallons to water due to burst pipes. The Robesonian Newspaper from Lumberton quoted an official with the NC Highway Patrol saying road conditions were extremely treacherous from south of Fayetteville (NC) through South Carolina, Georgia, to Jacksonville, Florida.

At the Wilmington airport 13 inches of snow remained on the ground on Christmas Day. (This is slightly less than what fell due to compaction of snow from to its own weight) This is the largest snow depth ever reported in Wilmington and made the Christmas of 1989 unforgettable for residents of the the coastal Southeast -- children and adults alike.

Local Stories & Photos

The Wilmington Star-News archives are publicly available through Google's newspaper archive project. Here are articles about the snowstorm than ran from December 23 through December 30, 1989.

Snow Falls on

Southeastern N.C. December 23, 1989

Snow Business

December 24, 1989

Snow, record lows slam

Florida December 24, 1989

Snowstorm cripples

coast December 24, 1989

Christmas '89: It's a miracle

December 25, 1989

Snowfall brings a white

Christmas December 25, 1989

Storm bashes

beaches December 26, 1989

Sun, city crews tackle icy

roads December 27, 1989

Low water leads to state of

emergency December 28, 1989.

Snow wasn't inconvenient for all

December 28, 1989

Coast paralyzed after record-

breaking snow December 26, 1989

Cold may have hurt

collards December 30, 1989

Bob High, a reporter and photographer for the News Reporter in Whiteville, NC informed us Lake Waccamaw froze over during the snowstorm, only the second time during the 20th century this occurred. Ice on the southern side of the Lake was 2 feet thick at least 100 yards from shore. North winds had driven ice southward across the lake, and new ice kept sliding under existing ice to build extensive sheets. Six miles south of Whiteville along NC Highway 130 in the Pleasant Plains community snow was measured 18 inches deep. The News Reporter noted that snow depth "in Tabor City ranged from 16 to 20 inches, while Fair Bluff reported 10 to 14 inches. Chadbourn, Clarendon, Mollie, Lake Waccamaw, Bolton and Acme-Delco-Riegelwood reported between 14 and 18 inches." Mr. High also provided the following photos of the December 28, 1989 edition of the News Reporter.

View of frozen Lake Waccamaw, looking east from western shore

Santa Claus makes one last snowy visit to downtown Whiteville as motorists

carefully make their way down the streets

Frozen Lake Waccamaw

Tuesday afternoon

Lake Freezes 2nd Time this Century. Holiday Snowfall

Buries Columbus

"...it's between 16 and 18

inches everywhere," reports Fred Lay of the

Olyphic community

The following ten photos were provided by Rick Beacham of Burgaw, NC, and show the tremendous amount of snow that fell in Burgaw during this storm.

The Christmas Blizzard of 1989

12/17/2012 by Judy Royal

Wilmington looked more like Anchorage on Christmas Eve, 1989.

WILMINGTON — December has almost been more like summer than winter in southeastern North Carolina the past two years.

It wasn’t so different in 1989 – until a few days before Christmas.

“It looked like just a typical December,” said Tim Armstrong, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Wilmington. “Earlier in the month it was in the 60s and 70s.”

The snow started falling just before midnight on Friday, Dec. 22, 1989. First there was an inch. Then came 9.6 inches on Saturday. And another 4.7 inches on Sunday, Christmas Eve. By Christmas morning, a total of 15.3 inches of snow had fallen and 13 inches continued to blanket the ground in Wilmington as the temperature dipped to 0 degrees.

By Weather Service standards, it was the only white Christmas the Port City and surrounding areas have ever had. The traces of snow that fell in 1948 and 1999 don’t count because they didn’t total an inch.

Both the 1989 snowfall and thermometer reading were historic for the N.C. coast. Snowfall totals were in the double digits throughout the region. Onslow and Carteret counties measured as many as 17 inches. Along the northern coast, snow amounts ranged from 13.3 inches at Cape Hatteras, 10 inches at Manteo to one inch at the Virginia border. Gale-force winds piled snow drifts four to eight feet high all along the coast. Many towns were paralyzed.

“There’s nothing else even close in the entire records that go back to 1871,” Armstrong said. “It takes a lot of crazy finagling in the atmosphere to get snow down here, especially that early in the season.”

The reason for this is the ocean temperature typically remains above 50 degrees in December, and that tends to throw warm air back onto shore, he said. We’re much more likely to get snow in January and February, when the water temperature bottoms out, he added.

“Generally when we have really cold air we have dry air, so we don’t have any precipitation,” said Rick Krietner, a meteorologist at the Weather Service’s Wilmington office. “If it’s moist enough it’s usually too warm.”

But in 1989, a low-pressure system developed over “a crazy intense Arctic cold mass that came down from Canada,” drawing moisture from the Atlantic back into the cold air, Armstrong said.

The result was a rare coastal North Carolina snow event.

“That was like the perfect storm for the Southeast,” said Mike Caropolo, the meteorologist in charge of the Weather Service office. “Everything has to line up just perfectly. It’s hard to get all those ingredients to come together at the same time here.

Caropolo was an intern at the Wilmington office in 1989. He said “the forecast had no mention of snow in it.” So he started his drive home to New York for holiday vacation just after he got off work the night of Friday, Dec. 22. The white Christmas didn’t follow him there.

“For the two weeks I was up in New York I didn’t even see a flurry,” Caropolo said.

So could it happen here 23 years later? Not likely, meteorologists say.

The Weather Service website has a page dedicated to Christmas climatology. It shows a white Christmas probability of less than 5 percent for almost all of North Carolina. While it’s a little too soon to make an accurate call for Dec. 25, NWS meteorologists say look for slightly below-normal temperatures but don’t get your hopes up for snow.

Because the ocean temperature at Wrightsville Beach is currently 58 degrees, “it would take a heck of a cold air mass to overcome that heat coming out of the water,” Armstrong said.

But even if not at Christmas, don’t completely count out the possibility of another significant snowfall somewhere down the line in the Port City’s future.

“You just wonder if it’s a matter of time before we get another big winter storm,” Caropolo said.

This year is not likely to break records on the other end of the spectrum, either. The warmest it has ever been on Christmas Day was 77 degrees in 1955.

Those who lived through the coastal winter storm of 1989 remember it well, even more than two decades later.

Kathy Tolley, now single-copy manager at the Star-News, Wilmington’s daily newspaper, had just begun delivering papers for the company a few months before the snowstorm.

“I had a VW Rabbit diesel and it wouldn’t start to get to work,” she said. “They sent one of the district managers after me, and we delivered a route on the way back to the office. It was a nightmare. The city DMs (district

managers) were trying their best to deliver to the customers in New Hanover County. They were in vans, sliding all over the place. I think we wound up with one stuck in a snow bank and one in a ditch.”

About five inches of snow covered

downtown Washington in Beaufort County.

Photo: Stan Deatherage, Beaufort County

Now.

Gail Smyth of Wilmington did not yet live here back then but was visiting family near Wrightsville Beach.

“The only cars allowed on the road were 4-wheel-drive,” she said. “Thank god my dad had just bought a small Blazer, and being from New England I knew how to drive in the snow. Plus they were using farm equipment to try to clear the roads.”

Kristin Lubben of Boiling Spring Lakes in Brunswick County was also experienced in winter weather.

“We had just a few years earlier moved here from New York and were amazed at all the panic,” she said.

Over in Carolina Beach, some recalled snow drifts that reached several feet high and being stranded on the island for days.

For Carolina Beach resident Ryan Powell, who was 10 at the time, the thrill of a new Christmas present was too much to resist, even in the treacherous weather conditions.

“I got a go-cart that year and almost died when it slid and almost put me in the canal,” he said.

For others, Christmas went on much longer than planned.

“I will never forget my first Christmas in Wilmington,” said former resident Linda Honour, who now lives in Winston-Salem. “Friends visited for the holiday and stayed and stayed and stayed.”

For me, growing up in Sampson County an hour inland we had our fair share of snow that Christmas, too. I remember a photo of my 15-year-old self on the porch wearing my new brown leather bomber jacket, afraid to venture out too far into the snow for fear it would ruin my cherished present. The power was out for some time, and the plunging temperatures caused the whole family to sleep in the living room huddled around the fireplace.