Storms South Carolina

South Carolina came away from Athens, Ga., with more than a 24-20 upset of 23rd-ranked Georgia Saturday when the East Georgia chapter of the American Red Cross collected in excess of $53,000 to help in the relief effort from Hurricane Hugo. University of Georgia spokesman Tom Jackson said cash and check donations totaled $53,000 from the crowd of 84,000, and coins collected will be machine-counted today.

Congress on Thursday approved $1.1 billion in emergency aid for the victims of Hurricane Hugo, Capitol Hill's largest disaster-relief package ever. The White House announced that President Bush will sign the legislation, perhaps when he visits South Carolina today. "There never was this much money," said Bill McAda, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "But this also may well be the most damaging one (hurricane) in history."

Among many South Carolina coastal residents crammed into inland shelters, only one name on Friday was less popular than Hugo's--that of their governor, Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Early Friday, after the worst of the hurricane's tempest had passed, Myrtle Beach Mayor Bob Grissom gave the go-ahead for residents to return to their homes, sparking massive defections from inland evacuation centers.

Mayor Joseph Riley Jr., bolstering an attack by Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), angrily accused federal disaster officials Wednesday of lacking urgency in helping victims of Hurricane Hugo. A day after Hollings called the officials "a bunch of bureaucratic jackasses," Riley pounded his fist and declared: "I don't think the sense of urgency and hurriedness that the community needs and demands is there."

The Orange County chapter of the American Red Cross will be sending a longtime volunteer, Priscilla Schoch, Sunday to join with hundreds of other Red Cross workers in aiding Hurricane Hugo victims in South Carolina, chapter spokeswoman Joan Mueller was said. The chapter also will receive donations of money from Orange County residents for the hurricane relief effort, as well as accept blood donors to increase current supplies.

For the nation's insurance companies, Hurricane Hugo is sure to be among the costliest storms ever to hit the United States, insurance officials said Sunday as they tried to assess the massive property damage in North and South Carolina. "There will be hundreds of millions of dollars in insured property losses," said William J. Davis, Southern regional manager in the Atlanta office of the Insurance Information Institute. "Charleston is really a mess."