Hurricane Camille was the 1969 hurricane that made landfall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast as a Category 5 storm. It came ashore near Bay St. Louis early on 18 August 1969 with an estimated maximum sustained wind speed of 175 mph.
Camille formed south of Cuba on 14 August and crossed western Cuba before entering the Gulf of Mexico. There, exceptionally favorable conditions allowed it to intensify rapidly into one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to strike the United States.
Its landfall pressure was measured at 900 millibars, and the storm generated a peak water level of about 24.6 feet at Pass Christian, Mississippi. Camille devastated coastal communities and killed hundreds of people across the Gulf Coast and inland regions, including Virginia, where its remnants caused catastrophic flooding.
Camille is often compared with Hurricane Katrina, but the storms differed in important ways. Camille was stronger at Mississippi landfall, while Katrina produced a larger overall disaster and later surpassed Camille’s record storm surge in the continental United States. Camille’s name was retired after the 1969 season.