Submitted 09/21/09 12:02:49 by jerry Jonas Mudge from Charlotte N.C..

Q Not a question but a statement. My first husband Leon Jonas worked in the mail room that the time Hugo hit and after sending the newspaper out that night, he was unable to get home himself. We lived in the Steele Creek section of Charlotte and he had to park his van next to the Food Lion on South Tryon until someone cut the trees in the road blocking the street near our home. It is really odd that my youngest son Wayne was able to bring his wife and son all the way from Gastonia to our home but his dad couldn't get there until the next morning at 8:00 am. While everyone seemed afraid of the storm, my oldest son Leon Jr and I opened the front and back door and watched it. We had never seen a storm like that before. Didn't think about the danger at all. We only had one tree fall.

Answered 09/23/09 22:12:53 by Rick Thames

A: Yes, Hugo was like this. One Observer carrier, Dave Smiley, told me that he was only seven miles from home when he finished his route in the Pineville area that day. "But I had to drive about 30 miles to get there," Dave said. Dave also remembers exactly how long he was without power. "Nine days, 14 hours and 20 minutes." Another carrier, Robert Jackson, was delivering in the vicinity of Nation's Ford Road that morning. Robert saw trees on top of cars and houses with their roofs blown off. "Nobody expected to get a paper that day," Robert said. "A lot of people shook my hand."