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Another Hurricane Camille Eyewitness Story

| August 17, 2017 @ 8:51 pm

Sarah from Birmingham read the Hurricane Camille stories today and decided to share her own.

Hey Bill!

I was 18 years old & in Hurricane Camille, evacuated very late Sunday afternoon to a school one block from the Biloxi beach. By the time we found out the bad news, the tv was saying to evacuate locally, the roads were blocked. My sister & I had been shopping & out & about all weekend & didn’t know there was a hurricane headed straight toward us. We thought it was headed for Texas. We never turned on the tv over the weekend until my family called mid-day Sunday to ask what we were doing about the hurricane – what hurricane!

By the time we were ready to evacuate, the winds were so strong we basically crawled to her car on our & hands & knees & drove one the block to the school. It was the most terrifying night of my life with the unbelievable sound of the winds & transformers blowing up & all that goes with a giant hurricane. However, we were all safe inside the school. When the storming finally stopped & daylight came, we walked outside to the horrible destruction of my sister’s neighborhood. All her landlord’s properties were destroyed within a 3 block area from the beach except her fourplex. Her landlord family swam to her apartment in the middle of the night after the water rose chest high in their beautiful beach home. They had not planned to abandon it, & my sister told them she would leave her door unlocked in case they decided to leave their home.

That next morning my sister’s assignment for me was to carry buckets of water from the beach to fill the tub for flushing, which was a terrible, terrible job in the heat & with all the destruction & dead critters everywhere, but a good way to keep a teen girl busy since her apartment was full of her now homeless neighbors.

Also, the day after Camille hit, my brother-in-law walked across the Biloxi Bridge from the Ocean Springs side to see if we were still alive at my praying mother’s request. Because all the landmarks were destroyed, he walked about a mile past her street & had to turn around & go back. Our whole family was standing on the other side of the bridge waiting to find out about us. He found us & very slowly through the debris drove us back across the broken & swaying Biloxi Bridge (all allowed by the National Guard only at our own risk) which was the worst experience of my life. As the bridge swayed back & forth & we bumped up & down the concrete slabs which had been pushed in & out of place, I cried hysterically & prayed the whole time & made many promises to God if He would only let me live.

Eleven of my sister’s neighbors moved into her one bedroom apartment as we were leaving including her landlord’s family. My sister’s fourplex, which was the 4th house from the beach, was up about 22′ high on a little hill. The hurricane waters rose to the bottom of the door & came inside just a little bit. The hurricane-proof house at the end of her side of the street on the beach had part of one wall remaining. The two “beach” houses on her street were foundationed.

I’ve never been so happy to leave any place in my life esp in less than 24 hours after a total disaster! We were super grateful to our heroic brother-in-law for rescuing us! Poor people that were left behind in Biloxi & on the Gulf!!

Sarah

Category: ALL POSTS, Met 101/Weather History

About the Author ()

Bill Murray is the President of The Weather Factory. He is the site's official weather historian and a weekend forecaster. He also anchors the site's severe weather coverage. Bill Murray is the proud holder of National Weather Association Digital Seal #0001 @wxhistorian

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