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Hurricane Camille
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The 1900 Galveston Hurricane, Hurricane Camille (1969), and Hurricane Katrina (2005) are the three most devastating tropical cyclones to strike the Gulf coast over the last one-hundred-five years. The 1900 Galveston storm was the worst human disaster in American history - 6,000 lives lost. The city of Galveston was leveled with frightening intensity. Hurricane Camille was a small, but super intense cyclone. Camille's tidal surge remains a record for height and inland penetration in the United States. Although the strongest measured wind gust during Camille was 172-mph - several estimates place peak winds in Camille at 215 to 220-mph.
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The surface wind fields and pressure fields of Hurricane Camille were obtained from the Hydro-Meteorological Reports HUR 7-113, and 7-113A (Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA), 1969 and 1970). In the latter report wind fields were given at 6-hour intervals from 0000 hours through 1800 hours GMT, 17 August, then at 3-hour intervals through 0500 hours GMT, 18 August, and then at 6-hour intervals until 0000 hours GMT, 19 August (see isovel charts for 17 and 18 August 1969). These were the synoptic weather charts used in the modeling study. The map below shows the traverse for Hurricane Camille that was used for the calculation.
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This fall, coastal residents are riding out the 1999 hurricane season, as residents of Mississippi remember Hurricane Camille, one of the nation's most powerful hurricanes thirty years after it made landfall along the Mississippi coast in August of 1969. Spawned by a tropical wave off the African coast, Camille became a full-blown hurricane southeast of Cuba and intensified in the Gulf of Mexico, with winds up to 200 miles per hour. Camille made landfall on August 17th, its center passing over Clermont Harbor, Waveland, and Bay St. Louis with a devastating storm surge that flooded coastal areas from Louisiana to Alabama. Camille ripped a swath of destruction along the entire length of the Mississippi coast. In low areas, the rows of houses stopped a block or two from the beach leaving only bare foundations along the beach front. From Pascagoula to Pass Christian, piles of lumber, building materials and trees were thrown together by the surge.
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In 1969 when Hurricane Camille made landfall, the eye of the hurricane was an intense storm with a well-defined eye approximately 10 miles in diameter. During the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, the eyewall (the area of the most intense winds) was in the transition phases to a new eyewall, which increased the central pressure and decreased the winds slightly (from 175 mph to 145 mph). Unfortunately, as the center of the storm transitioned to a new eyewall, the winds spread outward to cover an area up to 120 miles from the center of the storm. This ... built up a tremendous amount of water in the Gulf of Mexico. The expanded wind field affected more of the coastline with a ferocious storm surge. The winds were not the most devastating element of Katrina, it was the storm surge and wind driven waves on top of that surge.
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Hearn's book, "Hurricane Camille: Monster Storm of the Gulf Coast," was published in August by University Press of Mississippi. The release coincided with the 35th anniversary of one of the deadliest hurricanes in the nation's history.
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Hurricane Camille