Award-winning author Richard Coté has done it again. Coté has written another book about the Great South and the historic figures who have had an impact on the region for the better.

In "City of Heroes: The Great Charleston Earthquake of 1886," Coté, a Mt. Pleasant resident, explores the massive earthquake that hit the East Coast devastating Charleston and killing at least 124 people and damaging or destroying more than 67 percent of the city’s historic masonry buildings. The magnitude 7.3 earthquake tore through the Lowcountry destroying cities and crops.

Coté retells the horror of this natural disaster and its aftermath with journals, letters and personal tales. Coté also uses information gathered from the News and Courier and Georgetown Enquirer, along with 28 other newspapers and magazines.

"City of Heroes" tells the stories of heroic Lowcountry citizens, black and white, who worked together to nurse the wounded, feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. The book also details the leadership of Charleston Mayor William Ashmead Courtenay, who led the city to a full recovery in 14 months without financial assistance from the state or federal government.

"’After the first shock of stupefied amazement had passed, the real nature of the phenomenon become all too apparent. The roar increased in volume and the vibrations grew more rapid and violent, until the house swayed and rocked like ships in a storm. It was as though they had been rudely clutched by some invisible hand shaken to and fro.’"

An Pawleys Island woman reportedly said, "a very stillness of the ocean, more quiet than I had ever seen it" before a shock turned the ocean water to a "peculiar deep purple."

In "Redneck Riviera," Coté wrote of a single mother trying to control her teen-age daughter who is caught up in the drug and sex scene of modern-day Myrtle Beach.

Originally from Connecticut, Coté studied journalism at Bulter University. In 1979, he joined the South Carolina Historical Society staff before becoming a full-time writer.

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