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The James River in downtown Richmond after Hurricane Camille, 1969
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A muddy mailbox
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People on Boulevard Bridge after the storm
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The 1700 block of East Main Street
When Camille swung into Virginia on the night of Aug. 19, 1969, she was already a killer.
The Category 5 hurricane churned into Waveland, Mississippi, at 170 mph and kicked up a 25-foot surge. The storm ranks as the second most powerful tropical cyclone to make landfall in the United States.
The death tolls mounted; 143 died in Camille’s path before the storm — no longer a hurricane — veered unexpectedly to the right and slammed into Southwest Virginia. The swath of disruption extended from West Virginia to Fredericksburg.
Because of the storm’s nighttime arrival, with little warning, those in its path were at home in bed, without knowledge of the force barreling down upon them.
The weather forecasting of a half-century ago didn’t compare with today’s sophisticated array of radar and computer models. Predictions for storms weren’t hyped by the media as though prepping audiences for the opening night of an action-adventure movie.
A torrent of greater than 27 inches of rain fell upon the James River Basin. Rain barrels in Nelson County farm fields collected more than 30 inches. Mountainsides slid off. The pounding rains converted calm, small rivers and tributaries such as the Tye, Piney and Rockfish into roaring cataracts that pulled away their banks and rolled over anything in their path.
The destruction, though tremendous, appeared random: One house was obliterated, while next door there was minor flooding. In Nelson, a bottle and a blanket were found in a baby’s bed, but not the infant. The tumult yanked away power lines and cut communications that would have enabled an alarm for other communities downstream.
On the 10th anniversary of Camille’s havoc, Marsha Blakemore of the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Charlottesville bureau wrote, “Entire villages and families were wiped out. The dead in Massies Mill and Davis Creek numbered 23 and 52 respectively. … Nelson County reportedly lost 1 percent of its population — by some accounts, 127 were listed as dead or missing.”
Survivors recalled that the intensity of the rainfall made breathing difficult. Constant lightning and thunder sounded “like a hundred jets warming up” and lasted from 3 a.m. to dawn, Blakemore wrote.
Water filled the streets of Buena Vista and Glasgow, Waynesboro, Scottsville, Howardsville and Bremo Bluff. The loss of 133 bridges and the destruction of 25 miles of primary and 175 miles of secondary roads meant that some areas affected by Camille couldn’t receive adequate assistance for days. Hiking or traveling by helicopter — as Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr. did to view the damage — were the quickest ways to reach them. Religious organizations, in particular the Mennonites, rushed to help the Blue Ridge Mountains communities, “working tirelessly in the steamy late summer heat,” Blakemore recorded.
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The James River after Hurricane Camille, as seen from the Belle Isle bridge
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Flood waters around the Southern States silos
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A view of the post-hurricane James River at the Atlantic Coast Line/Seaboard Railway bridge
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Floodwater on Hull Street in the aftermath of Hurricane Camille
Camille brought high water and a sense of occasion to Richmond. The brunt of the damage, some $9 million, fell where it tended to during periodic James River floods — in Shockoe Bottom. By Aug. 21, rising water forced the closing of bridges, and downtown offices sent employees home early. Rescuers of six marooned people in two houses in the 100 block of North 19th Street made several attempts before they succeeded. A store owner, wondering about his flooded business and annoyed by sightseers crowding the barricade at Main and 18th streets, was quoted observing that the storm brought “the most traffic we’ve had down here in 50 years.” Onlookers hampered recovery efforts.
The city abandoned the Shockoe Pumping Station, which some merchants said worsened the flooding. Moving merchandise to second floors proved not to be high enough.
The rising James River forced residents from low-lying Fulton in the city’s East End. Spectators gathered atop Libby Hill, where ice cream trucks added a strange air of festivity to the natural disaster.
Things turned serious on Aug. 23, when a Dominion Oil Co. storage tank containing 300,000 gallons of high-octane gasoline sprung a leak. This caused the evacuation of a 29-block area in South Richmond and brought National Guard patrols. Tank trucks retrieved the oil after several days of effort.
During the cataclysm of Aug. 19-20, Camille took the lives of 173 Virginians, with property damage estimated at $116 million, though unofficial totals put the figure much higher. President Richard M. Nixon declared Virginia a disaster area, giving communities access to federal rebuilding funds.
The inland destruction of storms such as Camille moved Congress to implement the 1969 Disaster Relief Act.
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A Peter Max 7-Up billboard is partly reflected in the high water.
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Flooding around the Richmond Heating & Air Conditioning building
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Cleanup work in progress after Hurricane Camille
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The James River spreads outward after Hurricane Camille at Willow Oaks Country Club.
Camille and Hurricane Agnes in 1972, the latter part of a series of disastrous storms, led to President Jimmy Carter’s 1979 Executive Order No. 12127. The declaration united disparate disaster-related organizations into the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The Nelson County Chamber of Commerce in 1970 commissioned Charlottesville Daily Progress Associate Editor Jerry Simpson and his wife, Paige Shoaf Simpson, to collect stories of Hurricane Camille into a book titled “Torn Land.” Proceeds from book sales funded the building of a new Nelson County library.
In Richmond, the one-two punch of Camille and Agnes dissuaded city development along the riverfront that included a proposed revolving restaurant for Belle Isle, instead encouraging the creation of the James River Park System.
The long-discussed James River Floodwall, designed to protect Richmond and the Manchester neighborhood, received dedication on Oct. 21, 1994. A few of the floodwall’s 19 gates were closed in 2003 during the high water produced by Hurricane Isabel.
On Aug. 30, 2004, intense rains brought by the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston filled Shockoe with more than 8 feet of water. The inundation rolled from Church Hill, filled the culverted Shockoe Creek and overwhelmed storm drains. Power failure halted the Dock Street Pumping Station.
The floodwaters came from the wrong direction, which goes to show that people might make plans, but Mother Nature isn’t bound to follow them.
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