Speaking of Hurricanes...

Yes, another hurricane story. Growing up in New Orleans, hurricane country. Yep, I got hurricane stories.

Camille, 1969. 190 mph winds, 25 foot storm surge and a pressure of 26.84 inches. Incredible. The bad thing is that 225 people lost their lives and 50 to 75 were never found.

I remember Camille. It was my mom's birthday, August 17th. We have pictures of our dinner party in the family room. The patio window is boarded up. We were having cake. It was fun. We had the map on the wall where we tracked the hurricane's progress. That was the smart thing to do. Track the hurricane. We were new in New Orleans, having arrived in February from Buffalo, NY. We had no place to evacuate to.

We spent the night in the living room, sleeping on the floor in our sleeping bags. Shortly after dark, the wind started blowing. Later in the evening my older brother and sister went with my dad upstairs. My dad wanted to check on the windows. Screens and tiles were blowing around on the street outside. My dad wanted to know which of our screens were gone. My brother and sister came downstairs and said the house was moving with the wind. They said I should go and check it out. I didn't want to.

I was a quiet, shy, 11 year old kid. Feeling my house move in a storm was not a feeling I really wanted to experience with all the rain and wind blowing around outside. It was a fear that I really didn't want to know. I had too much fear going on already that night. Didn't need anymore. But we all went to sleep later and woke up safe and sound.

My friend and I hopped on our bikes the next morning to inspect the damage to the neighborhood. All we saw were blown down fences, shingles in the street, and broken trees. We got off lucky. We survived. 50 miles to the east 255 people lost their lives. We had friends who lived in the area of most destruction. They had eight feet of water in their house. We helped them clean up after the hurricane.

I remember Camille. More info here - http://www.geocities.com/hurricanene/hurricanecamille.htm.

D.