Hugo, which hammered the Charleston area 15 years ago tonight, was one of the more costly hurricanes in U.S. history, its 135-mph winds causing $6 billion in damage and 29 deaths in the mainland United States.

The Category 4 storm, an angry mass as large as the Palmetto State, churned ashore just north of the city and blew apart nearly everything in its path. It shattered barrier islands, destroyed or damaged every other house in Charleston County and wrecked homes in neighboring counties. It ransacked the tiny fishing village of McClellanville and snapped miles of pine trees throughout the Francis Marion National Forest.

When the winds finally died down and the waters receded, more than 50,000 residents across the state were homeless and thousands were without electricity for weeks. Water and ice became highly sought-after commodities. Forty of the state's 46 counties were declared disaster areas.

The recovery was so long and laborious that fires still smoldered nine months later at a few of the eight 24-hour-per-day burn sites for Charleston County debris.

Those images remain with residents who lived through the storm, including some who still are picking up debris from Tropical Storm Gaston. Elsewhere, the Gulf Coast states and their neighbors to the north are reeling from the destructive power of Hurricane Ivan. Charley and Frances have come and gone, also leaving their marks on Florida. Jeanne is stomping around in circles in the Atlantic, and a new tropical storm, Lisa, is making its way toward the Caribbean islands -- the latest entry in this relentless season of storms.

In a place proud of its history of survival, Hugo remains a touchstone. Nearlya generation later it's still a part of conversation during hurricane season, and nearly everyone has a story to tell.

'DEATH IN YOUR FACE'

Among those who lived through harrowing experiences that night and into the next day was former Charleston County paramedic Tim Lockridge.

It was about 1:30 a.m. Sept. 22, and the Lincoln High School shelter in McClellanville had quieted. Most of the more than 400 people had gone to bed. Lockridge and fellow paramedic George Metts settled back on their cots in the darkness.

Suddenly the storm surge slammed into the school, pushing in the window air conditioners and cascading through the openings. By the time the paramedics got out in the hall, the water was waist deep. People were screaming in the school cafeteria shelter area.

Shining a flashlight on the Plexiglas windows, "we were looking into the sea, like a goldfish in reverse," Lockridge said. "It was like being in a submarine that had been hit." A few hundred people crammed onto the elevated stage or onto tables. A woman climbed onto a window sill, banging on the glass and screaming.

In chest-high water, Metts had a look of desperation. They were supposed to help these people, Lockridge said, but what were they going to do?

"George, there's nothing we can do," Lockridge said he told him. The coastal town had taken the brunt of the storm, and the school was just a few blocks from the rapidly rising water.

Lockridge, the school's principal and a sheriff's deputy struggled back down the hall to look for a way onto the roof. Metts tried to calm terrified people in the shelter. He ended up on a table holding a pregnant woman's 3-year-old daughter above the rising water.

By the time Lockridge reached the end of the hall, the water was up to his head. The men couldn't go back. They forced their way through the ceiling and found an opening onto the roof. The winds tore at them, and the rain felt like sandpaper.

Lockridge lashed himself to an electric conduit and lay as low as he could as shards of the terra cotta roof flung past him like shrapnel and the wind sounded like a jet hovering over his head. "It was loud, dark, cold," he said. "It was like death in your face."

"We thought everybody in the building was probably dead," he said. "At first I didn't think there was any hope. It was a pretty raw feeling."

He hung on for an hour and began to think he might have a chance. He hung on for another hour, then another. By first light the storm had calmed. Looking down he could see cars floating in the water as the seas retreated. Inside, Metts finally could let go of the child. Miraculously, nobody had died.

STRENGTH UNDER PRESSURE

Roper Hospital maintenance workers David Johns and Daniel Dyer didn't think the storm was too big a deal until flying debris smashed a dent into the diesel tank outside. It could have killed him, Johns said.

Then the storm surge began to flood in. The diesel tank's pump, which supplied fuel for an electric generator powering the hospital's intensive care and coronary care equipment, went underwater. It was keeping people alive.

The duo fought their way out in the wind and rain, tied one end of a rope to a steel staircase and waded in to tie the other end to the tank. They took turns grappling hand over hand along the rope to hand-crank the pump as the water rose to their heads.

At one point, forced inside by the storm, they realized the tidal surge was pushing water onto the loading dock. The door seams began leaking. They laid a plywood sheet against the door, and each of them grabbed an electric motor and pushed it over to hold the sheet in place.

The next day they tried to pull the motors away. The two of them together couldn't move either one.

THE CHAOS MATCHED

The night before Hurricane Hugo, 150 people staying at the Crisis Ministries homeless shelter picked up their cots and their belongings and walked them along King Street to the Rivers Middle School storm shelter. Among them were 20 or 30 people with "pretty significant mental illness," said former ministries executive director Floy Work.

As the storm closed in the next day and nerves frayed, these people steadied. They took on the chore of signing in newly arrived occupants to give other volunteers a break. They helped in the kitchen. They gave up their cots for others who needed them. As the storm howled in the dark, they remained a calming influence.

"I think for the very first time the chaos they feel inside was matched outside," Work said. "It was pretty astounding. It reminds us we're all in the same boat."

Watching storm after storm steamroll through the Atlantic is a reminder that living in the Lowcountry comes with its hazards. Anyone who lived through Hugo just hopes history doesn't repeat itself.

"Each time a hurricane builds in the Atlantic I worry about it. You never want to go through another one," Johns said. "The hurricane itself is hard enough. The months after are hard on the nerves."

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