During one of the busiest hurricane seasons on record, today's anniversary of Hurricane Hugo, which smashed into the South Carolina coast as a Category 4 hurricane pushing winds of 135 mph, might go unnoticed.

But emergency planners warned Tuesday that if another such storm were to hit, wind damage alone could rival the almost $6 billion in damage from Hugo, the 1989 storm by which all others are measured along the South Carolina coast.

Storm models indicate wind damage statewide from another Category 4 tracking the path of Hugo would approach $5 billion and 4 percent of the buildings in the entire state would be affected by the storm winds.

Some 50,000 homes would be moderately damaged, 8,000 severely damaged and an estimated 5,000 destroyed, said John Knight, South Carolina's risk assessment coordinator.

Wind damage alone would generate an estimated 66 million tons of debris. The damage total would rise even higher once damage from storm surge is factored in, said John Boettcher, the hurricane program manager with the state Emergency Management Division.

Computer modules are being developed to model how surge would damage dwellings and infrastructure along a coastline that has seen breakneck development during the past 16 years.

"Suffice it to say that storm surge damage could be significant," Boettcher said.

While the eight counties in the coastal zone have 22 percent of the state's 4.1 million people, they saw a quarter of the state's population growth in the 1990s. One in every three new private jobs during the decade was created along the coast.

A major hurricane would affect the entire coast, Boettcher added.

"We may have to evacuate the entire coast and we're talking about 1 million people," he said. A storm could also require evacuating tens of thousands of tourists vacationing on the coast.

Hurricane Hugo smashed ashore Sept. 21, 1989, tearing up the coast from Charleston to the Grand Strand, battering Charleston's historic district, wiping away beachfront homes and snapping trees hundreds of miles inland.

The day after the storm, which claimed 29 lives, National Guard troops patrolled in front of boutiques and antique shops with windows smashed by the hurricane.

Hugo affected 40 of the state's 46 counties and areas inland as far as Charlotte weathered hurricane-force winds.

When Hugo hit, it was the most costly hurricane to ever strike the United States mainland. After Hurricane Katrina, Hugo was No. 6 on the National Hurricane Center's list of most costly storms even as Hurricane Rita on Tuesday was heading for an expected landfall late in the week in Texas.

"South Carolinians would prefer we not be atop that list again," said Joe Farmer, a spokesman for the South Carolina Emergency Management Division. "But our job in emergency management is to prepare for that possibility."

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