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than 100 'bodies have been found, Guice said units even “went down there and knocked on doors.
“At 4:30 p.m., the evacuation was almost complete,” he said, and this was about five hours before Camille’s eye moved inland.
“There were a few stragglers,” he said in Pass Chris tian Isles, a hideaway for many New Orleans residents since it is .-only 60 miles east of the city. “There were five families, four of those said they planned to leave but a fifth said it wasn’t going to go.
‘"these people were urged to pull - out,’’ Guice said. “After them, no one was left to the best of my knowledge.”
Pass Christian took an unbelievable pounding. Even the Hancock County Bank building, a solid one if there ever was one,, disappeared from its spot overlooking the Gulf.
ENOUGH WARNINGS Guice indicated there was enough warnings. Radio and television stations blared them out all through the day.
Movement away from the coast started about 10:30 a.m., after Civil Defense officials and mayors of towns along the beach agreed it should be evacuated. Guice said there was bumper - to - bumper traffic on U.S. 90.
They left, most of them. Some didn’t and why didn’t they?
“The people just won’t get out,” said Gulfport Mayor Philip Shaw. “It’s human nature to think the safest place is their homes.”
“If the people had believed us, there wouldn’t have been anybody in town,” Shaw said. “I did all I could do and that was to tell the people to get out. We couldn’t conceive of anything like this.”
Visualizing Camille’s winds is difficult. Force like that would have tossed a speeding Super Chief off its tracks. It leveled practically everything in its path.
“We didn’t order anybody to do anything,” Shaw said. “There was no such thing as going down streets and knocking on doors in Gulfport and telling them to get out.”
‘WOULDN’T GO’
“But some of the people wouldn’t go,” he said, despite ♦teWeather Bureau warnings -'vidcast appeals by the,,
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shipbuilding plant is at Pascagoula at thp eastern tip of the’ beach anc t area is loaded with milit^i/ installations like Keesler Field at Biloxi and the Navy Seabee base at Gulfport. Newcomers and those sta-. tioned there for a short time fill the area.
Vietnam veteran James Fulks, stationed at the Seabee base,, moved his wife and son from their Long Beach apartment to an evacuation point.
“I thought it wise to move off the beach because of the wife and kid,” he said Sunday afternoon before the storm hit. “But if I was by myself, I’d like to stay home and watch.” <300 PLUS’
The death toll Saturday along; the 40-mile long and five-mile)1 deep path of devastation was' placed at “300 plus” by Gov. John Bell Williams. Bodies were found in the twisted wreckage of beach front homes, many of them in the $50,000 class.
But there are areas searchers have yet to reach. Some probably couldn’t get out. But for sure, many didn’t want to leave.
They had been through hurricanes before but nothing like Camille.	.. -
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Hurricane Camille Camille-Aftermath-Media (142)
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