I would love to hear about Hurricane Betsy/Camille Stories

[cajungal]

If anyone lived in Louisiana during the time of Betsy or the Mississippi Gulf Coast during Camille, please tell me your stories. I want to hear what it was really like. Hurricane experience stories always interest me.

[MGC]

Hurricane Hilda was the first hurricane I recall. All I remember from it was lots of wind. I was all of 9 when Betsy hit. I got to sleep in that morning and I awoke to the prepration that was in progress. My uncle was boarding up our sliding glass doors. My Mom told me that a hurricane was coming. Thinking nothing of it, I went outside and played. As I recall, it was a nice day until the evening. My father owned a business in the French Quarter and he was away most of the day getting thing ready there. He arrived home and we all loaded into the car and drove to my Aunts house on the edge of the French Quarter. While we were driving in from NO East I guess a feeder band came through. It got really windy and my Mom was really scared. Being from New jersey she had never been through a real hurricane. Anyway, we arrived at my aunts house just as it was getting dark. The wind was blowing and my dad had to carry us two kids up the stairs because he was worried we would get blown away. The power went out shortly after we got there. Out came the candles which I though was pretty cool. As the storm built, waves of wind would literally shake the house. I fell asleep around 11pm or so I was told. Next morning my dad and I walked down to his shop in the quarter. On the way I remember stepping over debris of all kinds, pieces of roof, mostly shingles and tons of tree branches. His business did not suffer any damage. So, we went back to my aunts house and decided to drive home. Big mistake, as there were many uprooted trees blocking the main streets so we had to zigzag our way through town. Once we had to turn back because the street was flooded. Later I would learn that a levee had broken. We arrived home only to find a tree had fallen on the house but the damage was minor. Our street had a good foot of water covering it but no water got into the house. Our power was out for what seemed like an eternity which was the bigest inconvience of Betsy................MGC

[BayouVenteux]

Hi Cajungal! (and greetings to everyone else on the board)...woo-hoo! my first post of the 2004 season...

I saw your post and though I did not go through Betsy firsthand, as I was a youngster way up in the "frozen nawth" of Illinois at the time, I had the good fortune to marry a girl from down the bayou and settle permanently here in Louisiana some 20+ years ago. Her family home is southwest of Plaquemine on the edge of the spillway (the Atchafalaya) near Bayou Sorrel and Bayou Pigeon, that's about 25-30 miles up the levee from Morgan City. Her memories of Betsy are from the tender age of 8 but they are quite vivid and over the years, her mom and dad, brother and sisters have told stories about the storm that certainly backed them up. Andrew was my first real hurricane experience, and that was pretty traumatic, but folks over 45-50 years old who went through the 1965 storm have told me on numerous occasions that Andrew's Louisiana landfall paled in comparison to Betsy's. What made Betsy so awesome was not only her wind speeds, but the size of the storm...by all accounts the eye was huge...for a good portion of it's trek up Bayou Lafourche in the neighborhood of 60-80 miles across! Incredibly, probably due in part to it's forward speed (estimated 22-25 mph), the eye stayed intact from landfall at Grand Isle all the way to northwest of Baton Rouge! For several years I doubted my wife's family's anecdotes about going through the eye as far inland as they live, but later I studied a lot of the official weather service and local gov't. documents from Betsy only to discover that their memories were very accurate! She still recalls the excitement of getting out of school early in the day so everybody could go home and rush preparations, and how the fun and excitement gradually changed to a sleepless night of fear and anxiety as the wind and rain progressively worsened, then the storm's massive eye finally crossed over their house around 12-1 a.m in the morning and they went outside briefly during the calm. She remembers how the howling wind blew so hard that the rainwater came in through the window sills, doorway, attic door and ceiling vents as the whole family huddled around candles and a transistor radio back in the center room of the house. She also recalls how her dad spent the whole night in a yellow rain slicker suit struggling to get to the barn and back when he could venture outside, checking on his horses and cattle, and trying to do makeshift repairs to keep the animals from escaping (as if they were going anywhere in all that!) as a couple of large trees came crashing down on the barn and pen area. Her mom has unpleasant memories of the storm's aftermath, with about 2 weeks or so of no electricity or telephone service, and a lot of cooking on grills and propane burners outside.

Another anecdote that I was told a few years back by a Baton Rouge woman was that quite a few tugs and barges were overturned on the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge as the eyewall brought a storm surge up the river as it made its way inland. I greeted that skeptically as one might, with Baton Rouge being relatively far inland from the coast. But later found out that too was indeed true. Reports from the time estimated an 8-10 foot surge rolled upriver with the eye of Betsy!

Almost 40 years have passed since Betsy, and my wife and I have two teenage boys who are too young to remember Andrew, much less believe some of the "old-timers" stories about Betsy and Camille. They have yet to experience a full-blown storm and think Dad's "getttin' carried away" when I purchase my annual replenishment of storm supplies at the end of May.

Oh well, one of these days they'll understand. Hopefully not any day this year.



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[Rainband]

My best friend Mary will be here tonight. She went through both

[bfez1]

I was a little girl for Betsy. We left our home and went and stayed with my Mother's brother and his family. Started out like a party. Well I fell asleep early. My Dad and uncle stayed up all night and monitored the storm. They went to bed around 5 am. Well we were sleeping in the den on the floor. My Dad woke up around and hr later and felt that the carpet was wet. Thought the roof was leaking. Well he and my uncle opened the side door to go and check it out and when they did what a surprise. Water started flowing thru the house. Little did we know it would soon almost reach the roof tops. We were under water outside with boats passing right in front of the house. A total nightmare. Boats were coming thru picking up all the women and children and taking them to the front of the subdivison for safety. My aunt was crying cause she didn't want to leave her husband but they finally persuaded her to go. When my Dad finally met up with us we walked about 8 blocks to a subdivision that did not have water yet. We stayed there for 2 days with family friends. Then my Mother started getting real upset because we had no communications with her Mother who was in Orleans parish, we were in St. Bernard.
So we walked the levee from Arabi to New Orleans,(My uncle cut his leg real bad on a piece of tin) crossed over the Industrial Canal bridge and met up with my Mother's family who had no water what so ever. What a relief. We stayed there for 2-3 days. Then we finally got to go home. An Army truck was picking up people and taking them back to the parish. When you passed Carolyn Park (where we had left from) the odor was terrible.
We made it back to our house and our roof had blown off. Broke our "picture" window. So our home had damage too. We lived without electricity for about a week and half. But were just glad to be home. When we finally got electricity everyone was out in the street clapping---so grateful to be getting back to normal. It was an experience I will never forget as long as I live.

[cajungal]

Betsy happened 11 years before I was born. But, my parents were teenagers during Betsy. (They did not even meet; yet.) I think hearing their hurricane Betsy stories is what got me so fascinated with the tropics.

My dad lived in Cut Off with his family at the time. Cut Off is a small town up the bayou from Grand Isle. They received winds up to 150 mph in that area. My dad, my grandparents, and his sister and 2 brothers left. They went to St.Landry which is way inland in the central part of the state. That is where my great-grandma is from. Even over there, they received gusts over 60 mph. When they returned home, almost the whole area was demolished. Thankfully, they did not have any damage personally. But, they were without water, power and a phone for 3 weeks.

My mom lived in Thibodaux which is much further up the bayou than Cut Off. She rode it out in the very same house my grandfather lives in today. My mom comes from a very large family. So, she rode it our with my grandparents, and her 7 brothers and 3 sisters. They received winds in the 125 mph range. My mom told me that they got some water in their house. And that they had the hardest time keeping the doors from flying open. During the eye of the storm, my uncles went check out their 2 horses which were in the garage. Thibodaux also received severe damage. Lots of homes lost roofs, there was a lot of roof damage at Nicholls State University, lots of businessess with missing roofs. Telephone wires, trees and debris scattered all over the city. My mom told me that they were without power for 2 weeks. My mom told me that our experience with Andrew was nothing compared to Betsy. Andrew was pretty scary for me. So, I can't even comprehend how bad Betsy really was. My uncle has a book on Betsy and her damage to Lafourche Parish. It shows a whole booklet of black and white photos. The damage was so horrific.

And just think, we lost a whole lot of land since Betsy came calling in 1965. I heard that we are at least 20 miles closer to the gulf than we were for even Andrew in 1992. The barrier islands are almost all gone. So, could you imagine if another Betsy would hit us this season? We would be in some serious trouble.