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Chapter I
Hurricane CAMILLE
On Thursday morning, August 14, 1969, Navy 7, a reconnaissance plane out of Jacksonville, was flying a weather mission over the Caribbean. The flight had been requested by the National Hurricane Center in Miami to investigate a suspicious low pressure tropical wave which had moved across the Atlantic from Africa and ranged across Cuba into the western Caribbean.
Four hundred eight miles south of Miami and 60 miles west of Grand Cayman Island Navy 7's flight pattern intercepted a rapidly developing depression which grew with amazing speed and reached storm intensity even as the aircraft circled the area. Running low on fuel, Navy 7 reported data on the storm location near Latitude 19.3 north and Longitude 82.3 west—maxifnu'm surface winds over 57 miles an hour, sea-level pressure 29.49 inches—and headed for home. Navy 7 had witnessed the birth of one of the most vicious storms ever recorded in North Atlantic hurricane history: CAMILLE.
Advisory Number One on CAMILLE was issued by the National Hurricane Center at 1 pm EDT that day. It reported the storm moving west-northwest at about 13 miles an hour with highest winds about 60 miles per hour in a small area near the center. It was predicted to reach the extreme west tip of Cuba by early the following morning, raking the Isle of Pines with gale force winds in its passage. Significantly, this first advisory on CAMILLE prophesied: "conditions favor rapid intensification of this young storm.”
Two advisories and two bulletins were to follow that day, the beginnings of a constant flow that were to report on CAMILLE’s every movement as her threat intensified.
Early on the morning of August 15 CAMILLE reached hurricane intensity about 60 miles south-southeast of Pinar del Rio. Cuba was warned by the National Hurricane Center to prepare for rapidly increasing winds reaching hurricane force by early afternoon with
tides up to eight feet on the southwest coast. Cuban radar had the storm under surveillance, and radar reports from Havana were relayed as CAMILLE edged closer on a northwesterly track.
Although still maturing, winds at the storm’s core had already reach 115 miles an hour on the afternoon of the 15th, and the central pressure had dropped to 29.40 inches. A bulletin issued at 3 pm on August 15 distinguished her as the most intense hurricane since BEULAH of 1967.
CAMILLE moved across western Cuba on the evening of the 15th and was off the northern coast before the day was through. In the vicinity of Guane and the Isle of Pines, 90-mile-an-hour winds and 10-inch rains were reported.
Weakened only slightly by her trek overland, CAMILLE began to regain her strength over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Radar and plane surveillance placed her early Saturday at Latitude 23.2 north and Longitude 85.0 west or about 220 miles west-southwest of Key West moving north-northwest at 10 miles an hour with winds estimated at 100 miles an hour near the center.
At 9 am CDT, Saturday, August 16, Special Advisory Number Nine set up a Hurricane Watch from Biloxi, Mississippi, to St. Marks, Florida, and warned that CAMILLE was “potentially a very dangerous hurricane,” with winds expected to remain at not less than 100 miles an hour, and a strong possibility of further intensification. At 11 am the same day hurricane warnings were issued for the area from Ft. Walton to St. Marks, Florida, and preparations were urged for tides of five to ten feet.
The Southern Regional Office. Weather Bureau, moved to assign a special crew to reopen a Weather Bureau office at Pensacola, Florida, and provide additional protection for that area of the coastline.
Late Saturday afternoon, Reconnaissance
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