MONROE — Hugo wasn’t supposed to be a name sealed in the memories of those living in North Carolina in the late 1980s. North Carolina is too far up the Atlantic Coast and the Charlotte area is too far inland to ever experience the true force of such a powerful hurricane, residents reasoned. Sure there’d be rain, the forecasters said. But it’d probably be like that of a regular thunderstorm. And although there was a possibility of winds around 80 mph, the papers predicted most winds wouldn’t reach that speed.

They were wrong.

When Hugo made landfall in South Carolina as a Category 4, it became increasingly obvious Hugo was a different kind of storm. Mostly because of storm surge, the outer bands of the storm caused significant damage to the N.C. coastline, including Brunswick County and the Outer Banks.

During the early morning of Sept. 22, 1989, Hugo raced inland toward Charlotte, where it had sustained winds of 69 mph and gusts of 87 mph. Damages totaled $1 billion in North Carolina and 29 counties were declared federal disaster areas.

Despite the mark Hugo left on North Carolina history, Union County genealogy and local history librarian Patricia Poland said she found little on file about the storm when she began preparing for the 20th anniversary. Besides a couple clippings from The Enquirer-Journal, the Union Observer and the Charlotte Observer, there was no written record that Hugo ever happened.

“So I started thinking, ‘Why not ask the community to share some of their pictures and stories?’” she said. “I realized it was 20 years ago, and 20 years from now people are going to want to know what happened here.”

On Aug. 29, the library had a writing workshop led by Margaret Bigger, author of “Recalling Your Memories on Paper, Tape or Videotape,” which encouraged residents to write about their memories of Hugo. Seven people attended the workshop, and seven county residents who didn’t attend the workshop also sent photos, Poland said.

Poland said she plans to put residents’ stories and pictures into a scrapbook that will reside in the library. She expects the project to be finished by June and is still accepting stories and photos from the public.

“I’m happy with what has come in,” she said. “I think in the long run, it will be very good, and 20 years from now, people will be very happy to have this resource.”

To contribute to the scrapbook, call Patricia Poland at 704-283-8184, ext 224.