For hundreds of years the city of Charleston has learned how to repair. The city was already licking its wounds from a category 3 hurricane the previous year that had damaged 90% of homes, exacerbated economic decline, and laid bare urban blight.
So when Charlestonians detected those first rumbles underfoot on August 31, 1886, it felt like just a continuation of the battering. But it would be much more.
On that blistering summer evening, the most powerful seismic event ever recorded in the southeastern United States rattled the Holy City. Measuring between 6.6 and 7.6 on the Richter scale, the earthquake claimed at least one hundred lives (though some historians estimate fatalities may have reached five times that number), destroyed thousands of buildings, and cost the city nearly $6 million (about $170 million today).
Over the three years that followed, Charleston would experience more than 300 aftershocks, leaving its residents emotionally hostage to an unpredictable, lingering menace.
And yet, Charleston was not paralyzed, stymied, or even wholly disheartened. In fact, according to the National Archives, the response of her citizens showed model resolve: “Without state and federal assistance, the people of Charleston affected the most rapid, humane, and financially responsible recovery from the destruction of a large scale disaster in American history up to that time.
Charlestonians were back to work repairing their city in a week and had rebuilt the city in 14 months. Outpourings of sympathy and assistance came from all over a country that had recently been divided by the Civil War, despite South Carolina’s leadership in it.
Additionally, much of what is generally now known about earthquakes was a result of the scientific study of the Charleston quake. As a result of the area’s hard work, the people of Charleston won the respect and admiration of much of the rest of the country and the city was again seen as one that should be visited.”
The earthquake of 1886 would be one of many natural disasters that plagued the Lowcountry in the late 19th Century. But it would be one of many that, collectively, galvanized in Charleston a re-birth – of civic engagement, robust innovation, and an artistic renaissance.
And that turnabout would be just one of so many others by which Charleston would come to be characterized.
In the face of historic flooding and more frequent hurricanes of consequential category, Charleston today is embarking on a massive fortification effort to protect the peninsula for future generations.
With the acknowledgment that real reform is not accomplished through rhetoric but through action – and that black lives matter – city leadership through every department is partnering with advocacy groups, business owners, and citizens to enact real changes in Charleston’s observance of true social justice.
In the acknowledgment that history is not heritage, Charleston is leading the shift from celebrating to relegating its most divisive formative figures and symbols - from leading the march for the removal of the Confederate flag from the Capital dome to the dismantling of the statue of slavery advocate John C. Calhoun from the city’s center square.
Charleston is known for its hospitality, to be sure. But beyond the glossy pages of travel publications, she has more profound hallmarks: swift resiliency following natural disasters, thoughtful restoration in the aftermath of wars, and compassionate responses to violence and civil unrest.
Charleston is gutsy, but not impulsive.
Charleston is pliable, but never a pushover.
Charleston has fortitude and faith and prudence.
As all great cities, ours is always a work in progress - that is for certain. But so is this: the hardiness and dignity she has brought to these challenges is the same she will bring – that she is bringing - to a pandemic.
We’ve got this.
