dhweather wrote:Ixolib wrote:I've lived in Biloxi all my life, including during Camille, and no - not all houses were destroyed. The overwhelming impact was from surge, and wind-driven waves on top of the surge (22 feet plus!!). We stayed in our frame house, as did most in our neighborhood. Not a single house was "destroyed". And that scenario was about the same all across the coast. However, those that were below the 20ft mark were pretty much gone - SURGE is the culprit!!.
Closer to the Pass (Pass Christian) the damage was worse.
Oddly enough, the saving grace for a large part of the MS coast in Camille was the railroad - it acted as a levee, protecting a lot of areas.
I agree - the further west you go, the worse the damage. However, the over-riding factor in the signifiance of damage was the surge. Had Camille come ashore on another coast where the bottom characteristics were quite a bit deeper just offshore, the surge would have been considerably less, and hence the damage would have been less. I agree, 190-200 MPH winds are about as nasty as they come - but they in and of themselves won't typically blow entire neighborhoods off the map. Many, many structures were left standing, albeit with every extreme of damage one can imagine.
