Camille 1969

Book excerpt: Thirty-six years before Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and southern Mississippi, the region was visited by one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the United States: Camille. Mark M. Smith offers three highly original histories of the storm's impact in southern Mississippi. In the first essay Smith examines the sensory experience and impact of the hurricane--how the storm rearranged and challenged residents' senses of smell, sight, sound, touch, and taste. The second essay explains the way key federal officials linked the question of hurricane relief and the desegregation of Mississippi's public schools. Smith concludes by considering the political economy of short- and long-term disaster recovery, returning to issues of race and class. Camille, 1969 offers stories of survival and experience, of the tenacity of social justice in the face of a natural disaster, and of how recovery from Camille worked for some but did not work for others. Throughout these essays are lessons about how we might learn from the past in planning for recovery from natural disasters in the future.