[Granville-Hough] 1 Feb 2009 - Hurricane Camille
Trustees and Executors for Granville W. Hough
gwhough at oakapple.net
Fri Apr 30 06:05:51 PDT 2010
HURRICANE CAMILLE
Of course, we remember Hurricane Katrina, just a few years ago, but
its mentor was Hurricane Camille. Since records have been kept,
Hurricane Camille was the second Saffir/Simpson Category 5 storm to hit
the United States, and it was the worst hurricane of the twentieth
century. But before I describe Hurricane Camille, I recall that in 1934
when I entered sixth grade, I found we would study Mississippi History.
My history book devoted almost a whole chapter to the Mississippi Sea
Wall, which had been built from Pascagoula to Pass Christian, in spite
of the Depression and shortage of funds. At last, Mississippi would be
free from the devastating storms which had prevented the development of
the coastal area. The wall was actually built in a series of steps on
the ocean side, making easy access to the beaches. Industrial and
residential building went along slowly until WW II, when war industries
moved to coastal areas. Then thousands of homes were built right up to
the sea wall the whole width of the state. Hundreds of thousands of
people moved to the coastal area. This was the setting in July 1969
when I passed through the state on my way to California. Near my old
home, the old landmark trees, tenant houses, barns, and cotton houses
were still there but were deteriorating because so many of the people
had moved to the coastal areas.
Soon after I reached California and got settled down, I began to
read and hear about Hurricane Camille. It had been identified as a
tropical wave near the coast of Africa on 5 Aug. By 14 Aug, it was 480
miles south of Miami as a tropical storm. It hit Cuba with 10 inches of
rain and winds of 92 miles per hour. Then it turned north toward the
Mississippi River. The last weather reconnaissance on Sunday 17 August
measured winds of 200 miles per hour at the center. No more flights
were risked. Warnings had been given from the Florida panhandle to
Biloxi, then extened through New Orleans to Grand Isle, LA. About half
the people were able to evacuate northward. By the time the main brunt
of the storm hit Bay St. Louis about midnight of 17 Aug, the bridges and
roads were flooded, trees and electrical lines were down, and further
evacuation was impossible. People boarded up, climbed on tops of their
houses, and waited. There was no communication possible. All you could
get on battery operated radios was more bad news.
As the storm moved Northward through the entire state of
Mississippi, it took out all the old houses, barns, trees, cotton
houses, pecan orchards, tung plantations, citrus groves, so there was no
way to help the cousins who had moved to the coast. When the storm got
to the Midwest it hit a moisture laden storm moving east and merged with
it, creating floods, mud slides, and devastation . When it got to the
Clifton Forge area of Virginia, it rained 10 inches in 8 hours, causing
the worst disaster ever recorded for the state of Virginia. Only one
highway in the state of Virginia was left entirely open.
When I got back to Mississippi on visits, all the old landmarks were
gone. I could not even recognize the turnoff to my old home. This was
in Smith County, a long way from the Gulf Coast, so we thought.
The total cost of Hurricane Camille was 1.2 billion dollars in 1969
money. There were 257 deaths, 107 from flooding in Virginia.
Uncle Tom Richardson had a tung plantation near Poplarville, MS,
which was destroyed. Not long afterwards, he sold out to my brother
Roland Hough, and moved to South Carolina.
This mention of Uncle Tom's tung plantation triggered memories of
Harold Hopkins, who was sent from Washington, DC, to do recovery work.
Harold Hopkins was my schoolmate in Mize Grade School, and I believe he
is the main historian of that town. He became a journalist and spent
most of his life in the national government environment in Washington
DC. His comments will be given tomorrow.
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