On this day in 1969, Hurricane Camille made landfall in Cuba. Within days, it reached the U.S.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

I was living in Charlottesville when this happened.

Hurricane Camille

Hurricane Camille was the second-most intense tropical cyclone to strike the United States on record. The most intense storm of the 1969 Atlantic hurricane season, Camille formed as a tropical depression on August 14 south of Cuba from a long-tracked tropical wave. Located in a favorable environment for strengthening, the storm quickly intensified into a Category 2 hurricane before striking the western part of the nation on August 15.
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Map plotting the track and intensity of the storm, according to the Saffir–Simpson scale
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Camille Storm Total Rainfall

Camille caused moderate rainfall in Tennessee and Kentucky of between 3 and 5 inches (130 mm), helping to relieve a drought in the area, yet in West Virginia, there was flash flooding which destroyed 36 houses and 12 trailers, a total of three quarters of a million dollars in damage.

Virginia

Because the hurricane was expected to quickly dissipate over land, few were prepared for the flash flooding. Arriving in Virginia on the evening of August 19, Camille was no longer a hurricane, but it carried high amounts of moisture and contained sufficient strength and low pressure to pull in additional moisture.

A widespread area of western and central Virginia received over 8 inches (200 mm) of rain from Camille's remains, leading to significant flooding across the state. A total of 153 people lost their lives from blunt trauma sustained during mountain slides, related to the flash flooding, not drowning. More than 123 of these deaths, including 21 members of one family, the Huffmans, were in Nelson County. Debris avalanches occurred on hillsides with a slope greater than 35 percent. In Nelson County, the number of deaths amounted to over one percent of the county's population. The worst of the damage was reported in Massies Mill, Woods Mill, Roseland, Bryant, Tyro, Montebello, Lovingston, Norwood, Rockfish, and along the Davis and Muddy creeks. The James and Tye rivers crested well above flood stage in many areas, including a record high of 41.3 feet (12.6 m) at Columbia, Virginia. Hurricane Camille caused more than $140 million of damage (1969 dollars) in Virginia. Camille was considered one of the worst natural disasters in central Virginia's recorded history.
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[Va Lefty]

1. Both sets of my Grandparents lived in Nelson County at the time

Fortunately, they survived with minimal property damage. National Weather Service estimated that 27 inches of rain fell that night in Lovingston.

[appalachiablue]

2. That one I well remember being in coastal Md.

Satellite image of Camille in the Gulf of Mexico Aug. 16, 1969.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2009/08/hurricane_camille_she_was_no_l.html

Hurricane Camille, She Was No Lady! Wash. Post, 08/17/2009

As pointed out in Hurricane Camille, by Philip D. Hearn, the summer of 1969 suffered from no lack of epic newsworthy events: the first human being landed on the moon on July 20th (I was on the Cape May-Lewes ferry at the time of the landing); the Manson murders occurred in Los Angeles; and the Ted Kennedy incident occurred at Chappaquiddick. And then there was also Woodstock! But it was Hurricane Camille, following all of these, that seemed to be the coup de grace during that fateful summer.

Legend has it that the 23 remaining residents of the Richelieu Apartments in Pass Christian, MS were having a "hurricane party" when Hurricane Camille crashed into the Mississippi Gulf Coast with 190+ mph eye-wall winds at 10:30 p.m. on August 17th, 1969. Whether fact or fiction, it is known that all perished in what is now regarded as one of only two 20th Century hurricanes to hit the U.S. mainland as a category 5 storm (winds greater than 155 mph).* The other was Andrew, which devastated extreme southeast Florida, south of Miami, in August 1992.

There was, of course, far more loss of life from this storm than the Richelieu Apartments residents, as 172 died in Mississippi and, overall, 347 in the U.S. But considering the storm's intensity, far fewer died than might be expected from a storm of this intensity. By comparison, Katrina caused approximately 2000 deaths directly and up to another 2000 indirectly. We were not as fortunate, however, when it came to Camille-caused property damage, which totaled anywhere from 8 to 11 billion (2009) dollars, depending on who you want to believe. Again, Katrina far exceeded this number, with some estimates exceeding $100 billion, much of this resulting from failed levees in the New Orleans area.

Although 1969 hurricane forecasting techniques were certainly not as advanced as those of today, generally, they were still quite good (hurricane hunter planes were in use and satellite photography had already been around for 10 years). Nevertheless, a significant error occurred in predicting final landfall, when, instead of slamming into the Florida panhandle as forecast, the storm veered west by 100 miles and caught the Mississippi coastline by surprise. It would be the same as if a hurricane were predicted to hit Atlantic City, NJ but instead made a sudden left turn, surprising Ocean City, MD with a direct hit. Hopefully, an error of this magnitude would not happen today.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Hey appalachiablue....

Thank you for the video and I like the way the newspaper story put it in context of other news events that were going on the same year.

When I moved to the Gulf area in 1986, and visited Biloxi, Camille was still being talked about, even tho Frederick had somewhat eclipsed her.
Standing on the sugar sands of the beach, I was actually surprised that there was anything left anywhere along that stretch, because the beach and water come almost up to the road in a normal storm. Hardly any elevation.

Biloxi was lovely...the whole Redneck Riviera was lovely, before the build up of the casinos, and later destruction by BP.

anyone born after Camille had Katrina to remind them of how unstoppable nature can be.

[appalachiablue]

4. I remember seeing Charleston, SC & some rebuilding and

Bermuda after Hugo hit in 1989; most of the damage had been cleaned up. Same with So. Fla. post Andrew 1992.

The Gulf Coast is beautiful, I've seen some from the Sarasota area, Fla. Keys & Key West, New Orleans. Never have visited the TX-AL-MS beaches, the 'Redneck Riviera' lol, but know they're great; sorry to hear about the casinos build up. And I hope the awful, mass BP Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 that caused so much havoc has remedied, some.

My mom loved Corpus Christi and Texas when she travelled there and other places with my dad for OCS army training in WWII. And my niece has a good college friend from MS and will visit there soon. One day I'd like to see the area.

The Galveston, Texas Hurricane of 1900 was historic, causing massive damage to life & property in the growing city on the coast. I've read about it and seen photos of women in their long skirts retrieved from the waters after the wreckage. Terrible loss of 8,000-12,000 lives.

A brief 2015 video about Galveston, focusing on early warnings from Cuba and better technologies since then that have greatly improved weather forecasting. Includes original 1900 film by Thomas Edison. TC, dixiegrrrl

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. Thinking of Hurricane Florence:

I heard a lot of stories about Hurricane Camille as a kid. These @newsadvance photos show what freakish rains did to central Virginia almost 50 yrs ago https://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/photos-the-destruction-of-hurricane-camille/collection_0630ed20-474c-11e5-a0d0-0bcb843378a8.html#1 …

Link to tweet

To our readers:

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Photos: The destruction of Hurricane Camille

Aug 16, 2018

Forty-nine years ago this month, just after dark on Aug. 19, 1969, rain began to fall in Nelson County. The remnants of Hurricane Camille had arrived — without warning, while many residents already were in bed for the night, dumping an estimated 25 to 30 inches of rain over five hours.

Editor's note: Some of the photo captions in this gallery were updated in September 2017 thanks to the assistance of Dick Whitehead, board member of the Nelson County Historical Society.

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[phylny]

6. Thanks for sharing the pictures.