I was 7 years old and can still remember the night it hit and the afternoon leading up to it. It's amazing how far forecasting technology has come since then.
A little-known fact is that Hurricane Warnings weren't issued until 9 am Sunday morning for the entire MS coast. Until then they were in effect from Apalachicola Fl to Biloxi. The NWS had consistently forecast the bulls-eye to be at or near the Fla panhandle until then but it ended up making a direct hit in the Pass Christian/Bay St. Louis area. Of course all of the adjacent communities felt much of the full fury.
The false narrative was that the folks in Mississippi were slow to react when in fact there was little time to get out considering the storm was already making it's presence known early Sunday evening.
There was no I-10 open to traffic back then and the ways out were very limited.
One of the most iconic scenes among the devastation was that of 2 ships that were docked at the port in Gulfport that had washed ashore with the crews aboard. A reporter from a TV station in Jackson paid one of the ships a visit the next morning among all the devastation.
Upon arriving, he found that one of the ships had a rope ladder hanging from the side so he decided to climb the ladder to see if he could find any of the crew. According to him, he found the shook up Captain and was granted an interview. According to him, the ship's instruments recorded winds of 220 mph before they either broke or blew away.
These winds were never declared official because the NWS only considers surface winds recorded in one minute intervals as official.
Camille seems to be a forgotten storm these days because many of the folks that went through it and survived are long gone. It wasn't a big storm like Katrina but it's intensity remains one of the worst to ever hit the US mainland.
I'm just curious if anybody else on the board went through it and what they remember about it the most.
Sorry if too long.
A little-known fact is that Hurricane Warnings weren't issued until 9 am Sunday morning for the entire MS coast. Until then they were in effect from Apalachicola Fl to Biloxi. The NWS had consistently forecast the bulls-eye to be at or near the Fla panhandle until then but it ended up making a direct hit in the Pass Christian/Bay St. Louis area. Of course all of the adjacent communities felt much of the full fury.
The false narrative was that the folks in Mississippi were slow to react when in fact there was little time to get out considering the storm was already making it's presence known early Sunday evening.
There was no I-10 open to traffic back then and the ways out were very limited.
One of the most iconic scenes among the devastation was that of 2 ships that were docked at the port in Gulfport that had washed ashore with the crews aboard. A reporter from a TV station in Jackson paid one of the ships a visit the next morning among all the devastation.
Upon arriving, he found that one of the ships had a rope ladder hanging from the side so he decided to climb the ladder to see if he could find any of the crew. According to him, he found the shook up Captain and was granted an interview. According to him, the ship's instruments recorded winds of 220 mph before they either broke or blew away.
These winds were never declared official because the NWS only considers surface winds recorded in one minute intervals as official.
Camille seems to be a forgotten storm these days because many of the folks that went through it and survived are long gone. It wasn't a big storm like Katrina but it's intensity remains one of the worst to ever hit the US mainland.
I'm just curious if anybody else on the board went through it and what they remember about it the most.
Sorry if too long.
