A couple of weeks ago, August 17th passed without many here in the Mississippi Delta realizing the significance of this date. However, fifty-five years ago residents on the Mississippi Gulf Coast were fighting for their lives during that moment as Hurricane Camille made landfall.
Rated a Category 5 hurricane, Camille was the second most powerful hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. up to that point. In fact, Camille’s winds were stronger than Hurricane Katrina’s that slammed into the Mississippi Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005.
Leading up to August 17, 1969, weather forecasters were closely watching the storm as it worked its way across Cuba. After Camille ravaged the western end of the small island, meteorologists were unsure where the storm was headed. Was it going to land somewhere on the Florida panhandle? Alabama? The Mississippi Gulf Coast? Louisiana? Texas? Where?
These were the early days of predicting the weather and it had only been three years since satellites began tracking weather systems. So, meteorologists were certainly limited in their capabilities back in 1969.
However, on Friday, August 15, the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for 110 miles of coastal lands for Florida. The next day, hurricane watches were issued from Biloxi to St Marks, Florida. In Mississippi, these changing reports didn’t mean much to those who lived on our coast because two years before, residents there had weathered Hurricane Betsy so they weren’t worried about Camille. However, Mississippi Delta farmers were beginning to worry because they were nearing the end of the 1969 growing season and harvest time was quickly approaching. If a hurricane landed on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, that could spell big trouble for our Delta farmers in the form of rain and high winds. Just when farmers didn’t need it.
It all came to a head on the night of August 17, 1969 just before midnight when Camille slammed into the Mississippi coast with incredible fury delivering the largest U.S. storm surge on record—an astonishing 24.6 feet in Pass Christian. That record wasn’t broken until Hurricane Katrina’s 27.8’ storm surge in 2005.
Upon landfall, the storm surge covered Mississippi’s entire Gulf shoreline and caused destruction from five to ten blocks inland.
By sunrise on August 18, some 4,000 homes and businesses had been destroyed, over 300 had lost their lives and $1 billion in damages had taken place. Many people were never seen or heard from again.
Camille was so powerful it forced the Mississippi River to flow backwards up the river for 125 miles. Reports are that up to eighty tornadoes were inside of Camille. The actual maximum sustained winds of the storm are not known because the hurricane destroyed all the wind-recording instruments in the landfall area. However, re-analysis of the data found peak winds of over 200 mph along the coast.
As soon as the storm made landfall, it weakened and became a tropical depression. It then continued north and passed over the Mississippi Delta. High winds and torrential rains caused damage to crops and property along its route before leaving the Delta.
I remember Camille like it was yesterday. Our family had a summer home in Pass Christian located at 236 Poindexter Drive. After the storm, our neighborhood was never the same. Many of the families from New Orleans who also had summer homes on our street sold what remained of their home. Several of our neighbors lost their lives in the storm and to this day I can still see their faces and hear their voices.
Back in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico, many on the coast were not taking the storm seriously and weren’t leaving their homes. For several days, Governor Haley Barbour had repeatedly warned residents of the incoming danger without much success. Then, someone on Haley’s staff suggested, “Start emphasizing this storm is going to be as bad or worse than Hurricane Camille.” Only then did people start leaving the coastline by the thousands.
The date of August 17, 1969 will forever be etched in Mississippi’s history books.
As this hurricane season gets underway, let’s keep our friends on the coast in our prayers.
We hope you enjoy this edition of the Delta Business Journal.