Local Hazard History
Charlotte sits well inland in the Carolina Piedmont, but that hasn't spared it. Its most famous disaster is Hurricane Hugo, which stunned the city on September 22, 1989 by holding hurricane strength more than 200 miles inland - a 99 mph gust was clocked at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, and roughly 85% of the city lost power, some homes for nearly three weeks. It was North Carolina's first billion-dollar storm. Charlotte's more regular menace is winter ice. The December 2002 ice storm coated the Carolinas in up to an inch of freezing rain, downed thousands of trees and lines, and knocked out power to more than 1.5 million Duke Power customers - the utility's worst ice storm on record - with some outages lasting into the following week. The third threat is water: Charlotte's fast-growing footprint of pavement funnels heavy rain into urban creeks like Little Sugar Creek and Briar Creek, which flash-flood quickly, and Mecklenburg County runs one of the nation's most active floodplain-buyout programs because of it. Tropical remnants moving up from the Gulf and Atlantic add more heavy rain and the occasional tornado through late summer and fall.