Word: coasts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Torrents of Rain. Killer Camille wreaked her greatest havoc where first she struck: the southern coast from Mobile to south of New Orleans. She slowed down as she sliced up through Mississippi and Tennessee, then unexpectedly exploded into torrents of rain that sluiced through mountain gorges in West Virginia and Virginia before finally swirling out into the Atlantic...
Camille signaled her arrival by suddenly turning the Gulf Coast sky charcoal at midday. By 11 p.m., the wind had risen and the barometer had plummeted. Riding waves 22 feet high, throwing rain hard as bullets on its 210 m.p.h. winds, Camille hurled herself at the Louisiana and Mississippi shoreline, uprooting, ravaging, killing in her awesome kinetic fury. In one fearful night, at least 235 were killed. Property damage was estimated at $1 billion. Cars and houses were smashed like toys, trucks tumbled end over end, giant freighters tossed about and beached. For a time, the ocean reclaimed as much...
...survivors, chaos reigned along the coast. There was no gas, electricity or drinking water. Roads were impassable, railroads washed out, telephone lines down. The stench of death was everywhere. Victims' bodies were found in bushes, trees and rooftops; dead animals were scattered along the coast. Medicine was scarce, and there were fears of a typhoid epidemic. Pascagoula, Miss., was invaded by hundreds of poisonous cottonmouth snakes flooded out of swamps...
Looters and black-marketeers added to the misery. Gasoline and drinking water were sold for $1 a gallon and bread for 50? a loaf, until authorities began arresting profiteers. Limited martial law was declared along the Mississippi coast, and National Guardsmen were sent into parts of Mississippi and Alabama to prevent theft...
...rain on the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia, leaving 62 dead and 110 missing from flash floods. Massies Mill, Va., was destroyed by the rampaging Tye River. "The excessive rainfall took us completely by surprise," said one U.S. meteorologist. Surprise also added to the toll on the Gulf Coast, where it had been thought that Camille was headed for Florida. So, however, did overconfidence in the face of the storm. "Most of these people have been through hurricanes before, and we had no reason to expect that this one would be so bad," said Pass Christian Mayor...