On August 16, 1969, merely two days after being christened a tropical storm, a small but extremely intense Hurricane Camille was already a Category 5 storm with a 908-millibar pressure center and sustained winds of 160 mph. Its track was north-northwest at a relatively slow 14 mph. On the afternoon of the 17th, a reconnaissance aircraft found a central pressure of 901 millibars and maximum surface winds of >200 mph near the center.

On August 17, 1969, Hurricane Camille made landfall in Louisiana and subsequently moved onshore through coastal Mississippi and Alabama, causing more than $1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars). Winds were in excess of 200 mph, forcing a storm surge of 8 m. Widespread flooding in Richmond, Virginia demonstrated that interests inland, far from the point of coastal landfall and ostensibly outside the storm’s path, can also sustain major damage from hurricanes.

Inland late on August 19th, a combination of factors interacted to produce several areas of concentrated, torrential rainfall. The rains caused devastating flash floods and landslides along the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains and record flooding along the James River system. Several rainfall amounts of more than 25 inches in 8 hours occurred, ranking the rains of then tropical depression Camille with other record rainfalls throughout the world.

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