Hurricane Camille (1969)

Camille came ashore on the Mississippi coast near Waveland late on August 17, 1969, as a Category 5 hurricane.¹ NHC's best track puts landfall at 0400 UTC on August 18 with 150-knot (173 mph) winds and a 900 mb central pressure.² The storm destroyed the wind instruments in the landfall area, so its peak winds were never measured, but Columbia, Mississippi, 75 miles inland, reported 120 mph sustained winds.³

The storm tide reached 24.6 feet at Pass Christian, Mississippi.^3,4 Along the coasts of southeastern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, the Red Cross counted 5,238 homes destroyed, 11,667 with major damage and 28,826 with minor damage, plus 1,007 trailer homes and 569 small businesses destroyed or badly damaged.⁵ The port of Gulfport was almost completely destroyed, and at least five trucking terminals were destroyed in Biloxi and Gulfport.⁵ In lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, every building from Port Sulphur south had heavy wind and water damage, and only six structures were left at Buras.⁵ Water was estimated at nearly 10 feet above the astronomical tide on Dauphin Island and coastal Mobile County, and Mobile and Baldwin counties in Alabama had roof damage and partly destroyed buildings.¹

As Camille's remains crossed Virginia and West Virginia, they dropped 12 to 20 inches of rain, with local totals up to 31 inches, mostly within 3 to 5 hours, and set off flash floods.³ Floodwater almost 14 feet deep destroyed the business district of Glasgow, Virginia, and downtown Waynesboro sat under 8 feet of water.⁵ NHC counts 256 deaths, 143 on the Gulf Coast and 113 in the Virginia floods, and $1.421 billion in damage.^3,4