The Gulf air on August 23, 2005, was heavy. The kind of late-summer humidity that pressed against skin and clung to every surface. Along the Mississippi coastline, cicadas hummed and the fishing was good, yet behind the ordinary rhythm of the season lingered an unease that many dare not say out loud. It was the same unease that had haunted coastal families for more than three decades: hurricane season.

Hurricane Camille

In Mississippi, hurricanes are never just storms. They are stories passed down like family heirlooms, and none loomed larger than Hurricane Camille of 1969. Photographs of splintered houses and sunken streets hung in local museums; stories of lives swept away were still whispered at church suppers. For years afterward, Camille became the yardstick by which every gathering

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