Hurricane Camille: Monster Storm of the Gulf Coast

Nominated Best Nonfiction Book for 2004 by the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters On August 17, 1969, Hurricane Camille roared out of the Gulf of Mexico and smashed into Mississippi’s twenty-six miles of coastline.Winds were clocked at more than 200 miles per hour, tidal waves surged to nearly 35 feet, and the barometric pressure of 26.85 inches neared an all-time low.Survivors of the killer storm date events as BC and AC-Before Camille and After Camille. The history of Hurricane Camille is told here through the eyes and the memories of those who survived the traumatic winds and tides.Their firsthand accounts, compiled a decade after the storm and archived at the University of Southern Mississippi, form the core of this book. Property damage exceeded $1.5 billion, $48.6 billion in today’s dollars.Fashionable beachfront homes, holiday hotels, marinas, nightclubs, and souvenir shops were devastated.The death toll in the state’s three coastal counties-Harrison, Hancock, and Jackson