Hurricane Hugo
One of the tropical cyclone disasters on NOAA’s billion-dollar list: $23 billion in losses at 2024 prices ($9.0 billion at the time) and 86 deaths.
What the offices filed during it
The 3 most significant tropical cyclone episodes filed in these dates, colored by kind.
- Tornadoes
- Tropical storms and surge
- Floods
- Wind
- Hail
- Winter weather
- Heat and drought
- Cold
- Fire, smoke and dust
- Marine and coastal
- Other
The toll
- Losses, 2024 dollars
- $23 billion
- Losses at the time
- $9.0 billion
- Deaths
- 86
The losses and deaths are NCEI’s, counting everything the disaster did. The episodes below are only what the Weather Service filed in its Storm Events record, which counts damage differently and often not at all, so the two never add up and are shown apart.
By state, as filed
| State | Events | Deaths | Injuries | Damage filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| South Carolina | 2 | 0 | 0 | $2.5 million |
| Rhode Island | 2 | 0 | 3 | $250,000 |
| North Carolina | 1 | 0 | 0 | $25,000 |
Episode by episode
More
Every billion-dollar disasterEvery storm of 1989The 1989 hurricane seasonTornadoes in 1989
Sources
NOAA NCEI, U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2025), https://doi.org/10.25921/stkw-7w73, and the Storm Events Database for the episodes.