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One of my grandmothers had a restaurant in Biloxi right by the Back Bay Bridge that was ripped up during Camille (she was on the south side). She refused to evacuate because her mother was very old and frail, and there had never been any real problem on the south side of the bay before, but the storm surge flooded everybody out so the police evacuated everybody in a boat.

My sister was there, said that a gas line was broken and there was gas leaking, and the power lines were down, and when the wind would whip the power line through the gas it would catch on fire and then the wind would blow it out, so there was a constant "ah-whoom! ah-whoom!" sound from the roar of the gas catching on fire, exploding, and then being blown out. They spent the rest of the storm in a Red Cross shelter, but there wasn't any real damage to the property, not like on the north side of the bay or the coast, where the storm surge did all the damage.

One man tried to ride out the storm in his boat, and got washed into the water, and spent the entire storm in the Back Bay, but he was wearing a life jacket and survived!

A lot of people died.

I always felt the most impressive pictures of Camille were the two 600 ft ships that ended up on the TOWN side of route 90. Actually the thing that impressed me most is what happened to Ship Island. Ship Island is an island right off the coast were a fort was built during the civil war plus it was used for a prison. The island was a couple of miles long and about a mile wide. It had been charted as such when the white man first got to that area. During Camille IT WAS CUT COMPLETELY INTO.

I rode Elane out in the Jordan river in my sailboat but during that one, the water actually dropped several feet.

I will always remember one evening when we had a strong low off of Bay St. Louis. I was living on the boat in the marina in the Jordan river where the gambling boats are now. I was tied up approximately 50yards from the shore. The name of the boat was "Georgia Peach II" and I had this cat named "Peaches" that lived with me on the boat. Peaches would usually show up around 6 PM but not that night. 6:30 PM no Peaches, 7:00 PM no Peaches, 7:30 PM no Peaches at which time I decided I had better go look for her. As I stood up I heard this clump, clump on the deck and in comes Peaches through her hatch I had made for her. We was very wet and very pissed off. I looked outside and there was nothing but water. The docks were completely covered and poor Peaches was a very unhappy cat since she had to swim the 50 yards to get back to the boat from the shore. If a little blow like that can bring the water up over six feet, just think what a hurricane like Camille could do.

One man tried to ride out the storm in his boat, and got washed into the water, and spent the entire storm in the Back Bay, but he was wearing a life jacket and survived!

Bet THAT was one wild ride!