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Hurricane Camille in the Gulf of Mexico

Hurricane Camille was the third tropical cyclone and second hurricane of the 1969 Atlantic hurricane season. At peak intensity, Camille was a Category 5 hurricane that struck the United States near the mouth of the Mississippi River on the night of August 17, causing catastrophic damage. Camille was the only hurricane with official winds reported to reach at 190 mph until Allen in 1980.

The storm formed on August 14 and rapidly deepened. It scraped the western edge of Cuba at category 3 intensity. Camille strengthened further over the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall with a pressure of 909 mbar (hPa), estimated sustained winds of 190 mph (305 km/h), and a peak storm surge of 24 feet (7.3 m); it remains the strongest hurricane ever to strike the United States and one of the strongest tropical cyclone landfalls worldwide. The hurricane flattened nearly everything along the coast of the U.S. state of Mississippi, and caused additional flooding and deaths inland while crossing the Appalachian mountains of Virginia. In total, Camille killed 259 people and caused $1.42 billion (1969 USD, $9.14 billion 2005 USD) in damages.

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