Category 5 The Story of Camille - Lessons Unlearned from America's Most Violent Hurricane

The epic story of the real victims of a perfect stormoverwhelmingly the poorleft behind in the aftermath of a deadly hurricane "A riveting new book." TallahasseeDemocrat "Not simply an historical account of a storm thirty-seven years ago but a living, breathing entity brimming with the modern-day reality that, yes, it can happen again." American Meteorological Society Bulletin "Fascinating, easy-to-read, yet informative." RichmondTimes-Dispatch "Almost like sitting in front of the television watching the events unfold. A page-turner from the very first page." RustonMorning Paper "There is much we can all learn from this relevant and highly engaging chronicle." Biloxi Sun Herald "A must-read for anyone who wants to take an emotional stroll through the rubble of these Gulf Coast fishing communities and learn what happened." ApalachicolaTimes "Should be required reading for anyone living in the path of these terrible storms." Moondance.org As the unsettled social and political weather of summer 1969 played itself out amid the heat of antiwar marches and the battle for civil rights, three regions of the rural South were devastated by the horrifying force of Category 5 Hurricane Camille. Camille's nearly 200 mile per hour winds and 28-foot storm surge swept away thousands of homes and businesses along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi. Twenty-four oceangoing ships sank or were beached; six offshore drilling platforms collapsed; 198 people drowned. Two days later, Camille dropped 108 billion tons of moisture drawn from the Gulf onto the rural communities of Nelson County, Virginianearly three feet of rain in 24 hours. Mountainsides were washed away; quiet brooks became raging torrents; homes and whole communities were simply washed off the face of the earth. In this gripping account, Ernest Zebrowski and Judith Howard tell the heroic story of America's forgotten rural underclass coping with immense adversity and inconceivable tragedy. Category 5shows, through the riveting stories of Camille's victims and survivors, the disproportionate impact of natural disasters on the nation's poorest communities. It is, ultimately, a storyofthe lessons learnedand, in some cases, tragically unlearnedfrom that storm: hard lessons that were driven home once again in the awful wake of Hurricane Katrina. Ernest Zebrowski is founder of the doctoral program in science and math education at Southern University, a historically black university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Professor of Physics at Pennsylvania State University's Pennsylvania College of Technology. His previous books includePerils of a Restless Planet: Scientific Perspectives on Natural Disasters. Judith Howard earned her Ph.D. in clinical social work from UCLA, and writes a regular political column for the Ruston, Louisiana,Morning Paper.Zebrowski, Ernest is the author of 'Category 5 The Story of Camille - Lessons Unlearned from America's Most Violent Hurricane', published 2007 under ISBN 9780472032402 and ISBN 0472032402.