EDITOR'S NOTE: This story originally appeared in our July/August 1994 issue.
It is perhaps the most astounding single weather event in U.S. history: A once-in-10,000-years inland storm with the strength of a 40,000-megaton nuclear bomb. A fury that saw up to 46 inches of rain fall in six hours, brought 400-million-year-old mountains cascading down into the valley, and nearly destroyed Nelson County, Va. in late August, 1969.
Courtesy Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), Lynchburg District.
U.S. 29 near Woods Mill.
The storm inundated Nelson County with some 630 million tons of water over August 19-20, 1969.
On August 19 and 20, 1969, Hurricane Camille ripped through Nelson County, Va., torturing people and land with brutal destruction that had no parallel.
It was a once-in-10,000-years phenomenon, wrote authors Paige and Jerry Simpson in their 1970 book "Torn Land."* Those who lived the nightmare had agonizing scenes of death and devastation seared forever into their lives.
Nelson County, named for the state's third governor, lies in central Virginia. Its county seat of Lovingston is about halfway between Lynchburg and Charlottesville. On the 1809 courthouse lawn, a granite marker memorializes the 111 Nelson County lives lost to Camille.
Hurricanes are not unknown in Virginia. Records say the eyes of 69 have crossed the state since 1871. Camille, however, was totally unexpected. Formed 300 miles south of Florida, she scooped up 108 billion tons of ocean, creating 30-foot tides. Hurling against the Gulf coast, she whipped northward with winds up to 218 miles-per-hour. By the time she reached Virginia, weather reports had forecast, her wrath would be largely spent.
So at first no one in Nelson County paid much attention when rain set in about 9:30 on a Tuesday evening. What was new? An unusually wet spring and summer had already saturated forests and farmlands, lawns and gardens. Then as downpour turned into deluge, the unceasing torrents began to signal alarm.
Relentless skies ran wide open for six hours, delivering an estimated 630,274,867 tons of water over Nelson's 471-squaremiles. Experts calculated the expended energy equaled a 40,000 megaton nuclear bomb explosion. When skies closed down suddenly about 3:30 a.m., Camille had set rainfall records that still stand for Nelson County, for Virginia, the U.S. and the world. Set records and swallowed up a county.
Throughout the county it rained 32 inches in six hours. In the 12-mile Davis Creek area where 50 died or were missing, rainfall measured 46 inches. The fall of water was so dense people couldn't see through it, couldn't breathe in it.
Deafening wind and water drowned out all other sounds, interfering with radio calls for help. Even though other parts of the country and surrounding counties were hard hit, nowhere did the loss of lives and property, the concentration of floods and landslides, equal what happened in parts of Nelson County. The fury of Camille claimed one percent of the county's 11,000 population. Thirty-one were children-more than a classroom's worth.
Nelson is a rural county. Its northwestern boundary abuts the Blue Ridge Parkway for 30 miles at almost 4,000 feet elevation. The James River, at 3,000 feet elevation, runs along the southeastern boundary. Three normally picturesque rivers and numerous streams meander through the county to the James. These waters Camille gathered into torrential force, pulling them to unheard-of heights. For example, the Rockfish River rose 27 feet.
With the onslaught of wind and water, 400-million-year-old mountains began to lose their hold. It was as if all Nelson was a ski slope for evil giants. Millions of tons of topsoil, trees, mud and rock catapulted down the slopes, carrying along houses, barns, stores, animals, people; uprooting apple and peach orchards, crops ready for harvest.
Those who heard it said the roar of massive landslides sounded like continual dynamite explosions. Constant lightning flashes created an illusion of bright day. Lightning set fires no fire trucks could get through to quench. Until helicopters arrived later, rescue squads were helpless. Camille wiped out roads, bridges, telephones, radio, electricity.
Two feet of water will launch an ordinary car. Minutes after one man left it, his house came floating past him. Another man with a neighbor's help floated his 90-year-old mother through the water just as her house broke apart. A child washed from a man's arms. Another .lost his house, his wife, and three daughters. For 17 hours before help came, a girl hung by one arm in the fork of a tree. During the night a woman put her legs over the side of the bed into water that carried away her husband and two children. Someone stayed stuck in a treetop for two days and three nights. North of Lovingston, a house sat on the median in the center of U.S. Rt. 29.
Survivors lost teeth, eyeglasses, life-supporting drugs and medicines. Jewelry washed from hands as people struggled through current so powerful it took the bark off trees. An entire tractor-trailer disappeared into the river, never found. The post office safe turned up 50 miles away. People's money vanished. Canned fruits and vegetables and the land that raised them. Irreplaceable items-antiques, rare books, inherited quilts, handcrafts, family photographs-all lost.
After the storm an unbearable stench hung over Nelson County. This was August. It was hot. Decaying vegetation commingled with wet summer earth, downed forests, spoiled food, trash, dead animals and deteriorating human bodies trapped in massive debris piles. The overpowering odors were alien to a gentle, rural county used to nothing worse than farm smells.
Residents were numb with disbelief at the tragedy around them. Said Sheriff Bill Whitehead who, like many others, worked a week with as little as two hours sleep a night, "You feel so small, with the magnitude of a thing like this."
Social strata, race, religion, age, personal differences no longer mattered. Everyone was in this mess together. Whites stayed in blacks' homes; blacks in whites'. Most citizens were already familiar with hard work. They were good at coping. Together they teamed up to try to put their shattered lives and broken county back together.
"We don't want to relocate," people told Governor Mills Godwin, who came by helicopter to declare a disaster emergency, then returned again and again. "We want to rebuild where we are."
Locating, identifying and burying bodies, bulldozing dead animals and spoiled food, and clearing debris became the order of the day. The enormous piles yielded bodies of children, of relatives, neighbors, friends. Digging a grave for his 13-year-old daughter was the saddest thing he had ever done, one father said. A college student on a rescue team uncovered the body of Miss Nelson Teen, a 17-year-old who had been his VPI Ring Dance date that spring. One man's body turned up later 41 miles away.
Under makeshift conditions county officials quickly organized. Help poured in-food, hay for surviving animals, clothing, medical supplies, bedding, furniture, housing, money, lumber/building supplies, trucks, loaders, bulldozers, communications equipment, ground/air transportation, rescue teams of all kinds. Little by little the county's citizens, together with 2,293 volunteers giving 23,595 hours of service, got the job done.
Today it takes someone who lived through nature's 1969 excesses to point out high out-croppings where Camille erased vegetation that never returned. To a visitor, Nelson County is serene and very beautiful. Go in October, as I did, and restore your soul with autumn's extravagant colors. In a day and a half, over 150 county miles, gorgeous reds, golds and oranges lit up the quiet prosperity of lush fields, neat farms and houses, country stores, an old mill, charming tiny villages.
That was my first impression-the sheer beauty of it all. The second was the good roads everywhere, even little-used back ways.
"That is one of the good results of Camille and the flood," says county treasurer Marvin Davis, "-if you can say anything good came out of it."
Another impression: This county with no stop light, no fast food, no movie theater, also has no roadside litter, no falling-down buildings. Nelson is clean. In the whole county I saw only one spot with too many defunct automobiles along an otherwise scenic drive.
Above all, Nelson citizens are friendly, independent, salt-of-the-earth people who'd give you the shirts off their backs. They are enthusiastic about the county's awakening to travelers. A group of professional women donated a combined 1,000-plus hours to design and produce a handsome brochure extolling things to see and do.
Nelson County, back from near extinction 25 years ago, now has enough activities and attractions to keep a visitor busy on weekends for an entire year.