Hurricane Camille
Hurricane Camille was a powerful, deadly and destructive Category 5 major hurricane which became the second most intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the United States (behind the 1935 Labor Day hurricane) and is one of just four Category 5 hurricanes to make landfall in the U.S.
Meteorological history
The most intense storm of the 1969 Atlantic hurricane season, Camille originated 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 Cuba on August 15. Emerging into the Gulf of Mexico, Camille underwent another period of rapid intensification and became a Category 5 hurricane the next day as it moved northward towards Louisiana and Mississippi. Despite weakening slightly on August 17, the hurricane quickly re-intensified back into a Category 5 hurricane before it made landfall a half hour before midnight in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. At peak intensity, the hurricane had peak 1-minute sustained winds of 175 miles per hour (282 km/h) and a minimum pressure of 900 mbar (26.58 inHg), the second-lowest pressure recorded for a U.S. landfall behind the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. As Camille pushed inland, it quickly weakened and was a tropical depression by the time it was over the Ohio Valley. Once it emerged offshore, Camille was able to restrengthen to a strong tropical storm before becoming extratropical on August 22. Camille was absorbed by a frontal storm over the North Atlantic later that day.
Camille caused tremendous damage in its wake and produced a peak official storm surge of 24 feet (7.3 m). It flattened nearly everything along the Mississippi coast and caused additional flooding and deaths inland while crossing the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. In the U.S., Camille killed more than 259 people[1][2] and caused $1.42 billion in damages (equivalent to $11.8 billion in 2023).[3]
Naming background
In the 1960s, there were four lists of feminine given names used for Atlantic hurricanes, with each list being used every fourth year.[54] The practice of retiring hurricane names was meant to be temporary, with the guideline that a name be retired for ten years. When the name Carla was retired in 1961 it was replaced on the 1965 list with Carol, a name retired in 1954 when its namesake devastated New England. Since over a decade had passed, Carol was eligible for reuse. Carol entered the 1969 list, but scientists from the National Hurricane Research Laboratory (NHRL) asked the naming committee in January 1969 to permanently retire Carol, Edna, and Hazel since papers were still being written about the storms. The committee agreed but needed a replacement "C" name. John Hope's daughter Camille was involved in an advanced science and math program in high school and had carried out a required independent research project. John Hope asked Banner Miller to mentor her in her investigation of hurricanes and long-term atmospheric trends. Miller was impressed by her project and suggested her name for the list. "We kept it quiet for many years," Camille said in a circa 2014 interview.[43]