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Heres a blurb from the Special Weather Summary from August of 1969 about Hurricane Camille.
A Low pressure trough moved westward on August 5,1969 off the Abyssinian Plateau of East Africa, the
birthplace of nearly all of the great tropical storms of the Western Hemisphere. After thousands of miles
on a westward trek on August 14 a reconnaisance pilot Lt. Drew probed the Tropical Storm...which was named
Camille. It was located at 60 miles west of Grand Caymon Island with strongest winds about 60 MPH. The
storm pressure lowered, the winds increased and on the 15th had reached hurricane intensity by 7am cst, when
the center was about 75 miles to the southwest of extreme southwestern Cuba. On Sunday the 17th when
airforce reconnaissance pilot, Captain Marvin and his crew found a pressure of 901 mb(29.61 inches) at the
core and spinning around the wall of the eye were winds whose highest surface were estimated to be 190 m.p.h.
Hurricane-force winds were reported outward 60 miles from the center, and gales an additional 120 miles.
The storm moved generally north-northwest with the center passing east of the mouth of the Mississippi River,
across Breton Sound, and into the Mississippi Sound.
The Hurricane crossed the Mississippi coast around 9:50 to 10:20 pm cst over the towns of Clement Harbor,
Waveland, and Bay St. Louis. Mr. Charles A. Breath, Jr.,of Bay St. Louis noted an aneroid barometer pressure
of 26.85 inches at a location several blocks from the west end of U.S. Highway 90 Bridge - when the eastern
edge of the eye passed over. People near the center of the eye reported that its passage lasted 30 minutes
or so. About 12 miles southeast of Picayune, at 1115 pm a pressure of 28.06 inches was observed. Camille
was filling in and weakening as it passed over land.
On the 18th at Columbia Mr Thornhill noted his barometer leveled at 28.29 inches at 208 am cst. He told
the local newspaper that the eye seemed to be 8 or 10 miles in diameter. The Hurricane Center passed about
10 miles to the east of Jackson Municipal Airport where winds gusted to 67 mph from the ENE at 614 am cst.
Its lowest sea-level pressure of record, 28.94 inches, occurred at 656 am cst.
Radar discerned the eye first over the Gulf of Mexico,(South of Gulfport),watched its approach and travel
to the north of Greenwood, then the eye became indistinguishable in southern Quitman County. Camille
became an extratropical depression before reaching the northern Mississippi border. Then it moved
northeastward...where torrential rains fell over the Appalachians, then Camille moved off the Atlantic
coast and on August 22 lost identity as an extratropical storm merging with a frontal system 175 miles
southeast of Cape Race,Newfoundland.
The Office of Emergency Preparedness reported that the losses in Mississippi due to Camille were $750 million
to privately owned property and $200 million to roads, bridges, port structures and other public facilities.
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