(Hurricane Floyd as it approached the coast of Florida. Image Courtesy: NOAA/NCDC)

It was nine years ago today that many people thought that a repeat of Hurricane Hugo was on the way as monster Hurricane Floyd bore down on the southeast coast of the United States. Floyd created the second largest evacuation of people in U.S. history along the east coast from Florida to the Carolinas. More than 2.5 million people were told to leave, which led to the infamous “Floyd Fiasco” here in the Lowcountry as people jammed the interstates and were left stranded as traffic stalled as the storm approached.  This would lead to a redesign of how evacuations would be handled here, reversing the interstate to Columbia to get the most people out of harms way.

Floyd, at its peak was a Category 4 hurricane as it passed through the Bahamas and then turned north toward the U.S. Mainland. Luckily Floyd weakend to a category 2 when it made landfall in North Carolina. But the damage did not stop there.

(Floyd Radar Loop, Image Courtesy: NCDC/NOAA)

Once inland, Floyd created epic floods across the New England states as it moved northward up the Appalachian Range. Floyd killed 57 people and led to more than $4.5 billion dollars in damage