The Lawrence Journal-World staff invited readers to share their Kansas storm memories.

2006 microburst

Kafka, my yellow Labrador, and I left for our long Sunday morning walk at about 7:30 a.m. Because of the clouds, I’d checked the TV and thought that things would be “OK unless something weird happens” because there was nothing south of us. It all was southwest but moving right toward Topeka, not us. I planned to get to the ATM at Ninth and Tennessee, but when we were at Ninth and Mississippi I saw a lightning bolt and immediately heard its thunder, so I decided we should head home quickly. More lightning and thunder followed, so we alternated between jogging and walking. We turned west at Eighth and Mississippi and I started thinking we might not make it all the way home, so we turned north at Missouri in hopes of getting to a friend’s house at Seventh and Missouri. We’d gone about two-thirds of the block when I realized there was a roar like a train coming up behind us. I realized we weren’t going to make it to my friend’s, so I pulled Kafka up against the northwest corner of a duplex right by their gas meter (thinking I could grab the pipe to hold on to it and Kafka if the winds got any worse). I’d never heard that train sound before, but I’d also never seen what looked like a river of leaves and small debris flowing absolutely straight east down Seventh Street. I also saw leaves spinning in a perfect circle down Missouri as the roar got loudest. As it was passing, I called my friend and said we were about 15 yards away and were going to run for it the moment I thought we could make it. It lightened up just enough that I decided we could, so we took off running and spent the next half-hour there until it was obvious all was OK and we could get back home safely.

– Rich Crank, Lawrence

1981 tornado

I was 16, working at the Kmart at 31st and Iowa streets. My family lived in Gaslight Village right across the street.

My mom was at home with one of my brothers and a sister. My stepdad and another brother were at Potter Lake fishing. It had started to hail there, but you know fishermen – they don’t stop fishing for a little hail or rain. So they got under a tree for some protection. It probably saved their lives. If they had started home right when the hail started, they would have been in the intersection of 31st and Iowa when the tornado went through.

When the tornado hit, it blew out the front windows in our mobile home, turned over the mobile home across the street (which had an elderly couple trapped under a bed) and leveled the gas station on the corner except for the freezer unit. A mobile home up the street was tossed and landed in the field across the street. My brother was able to help get the older couple out and safe.

There was only one person killed in that tornado, and he was in Kmart under the front wall that had fallen in. He did not heed the warnings of getting to the back of the store for protection.

We were eventually told we had to get out of the mobile home park because a gas line in the park had been damaged and gas was leaking. The response and control of the emergency personnel was great.

– Vanessa Russell, Austin, Texas

May 1978

We lived on a farm six miles out of Paola, and if you remember, the farm economy was not very good at that time. Since my husband had chosen the farm life, it was my turn to choose our next location. Of course I wanted to stay in Kansas, being a native of the state; of course, Lawrence was my choice. After the challenges of the farm, we decided the easy living of a condominium would be almost like vacation living. With very little thought we bought a condo on a Tuesday evening; the tornado came on Thursday evening. (I was in the basement under the pool table because of the danger of the glass door being broken.) We lived in a motel for three weeks and here I am still, and still loving Lawrence. (Do you suppose the insurance would have paid if it had been a fire?)

– Carol Graham, Lawrence

Childhood tornado

It was around 55 years or so ago. I was somewhere between 9-10 years old on a beautiful Sunday evening around June or so with my Dad, Mom, brother and sister in a town southwest of Lawrence, near Lone Star. My Uncle – not too long from getting out of the army -my Aunt and their little boy were there for a visit with us.

We were all sitting around visiting when my dad said the sky didn’t look good, so I went and look and it was getting dark and the clouds was rolling in, the air felt funny and the wind was picking up. You could tell something was going to happen. We were all in the front living room watching and listen to the wind getting stronger, enough to start blowing cans and things down the road in front of the house, making a lot of noise.

Many times before, my dad thought a bad storm was coming and he would wake us kids up and carry us outside to the fruit cellar, which was dark and wet down there and we would wait the storm out. While mom and all of kids was huddle together with a little light dad was by the cellar door peeking up and out to see if the storms has passed and when it did he would carry us all back to bed.

This evening he didn’t have time to get us all in there.

My other uncle that was in the Navy had heft his car, a ’47 Chevy, with dad to take care of. It was parked on the east side of the house about 30 feet away. Also, there was a very large oak tree, about 70 feet tall, next to the house on the east side not in too good of shape.

Now the wind was getting stronger and more things were blowing down the road making a lot of noise, and it was getting scary-dark, starting to rain. Mom told my brother to go upstairs and close the windows. My aunt grabbed her little boy and sat on the sofa and was hanging on – later she said if she was going to get blow away she was going to be comfortable. Mom had picked up my little sister to hold her. Dad, he got worried about my uncle’s car right in the path of that large old oak tree, so he hollered that he was going to move it.

As he started out the east door, the west door blew open and he went back to shut it as he just stepped back outside to move the car the old oak tree was twisting and shaking the noise was getting louder. Then, all of sudden, the old oak tree let go of the ground and down it went right in the middle of my uncle’s car. It crushed the top to the floorboard. My dad stopped and couldn’t believe what he had just seen. If it wasn’t for the back door blowing open, he would have been in the car starting it up to move it

Someone was looking out for my dad that day. My brother was still upstairs closing the windows, looking out the east window when the old oak tree went down. The noise from the wind blowing things down the road and the roar of the tornado above us with the large tree crashing down on the car my mother let out a scream which she thought my brother had fallen down the stairs. The uncle that was there had not been out of the Army too long, and from all of his training he all of the noise he instinctive had hit the floor as flat as he could get.

Me? There I was just standing in the middle of the living room watching all of this around me going on and wonder what was happen. I thought my world was coming to the end, and I never will forget it.

There approximately 70 people in and around the town. Slowly after the tornado has passed, people started to come out checking on their neighbors to make sure everyone was all right. After seeing no one was hurt, they started to look for the things that had blown down the road.

Then there was a lot of talking about what had just happened and how lucky we all were, but I knew my dad was the lucky one. My Grandma was a rural telephone switchboard operater for that area. She took many calls that evening from people wonder what happen and was everyone all right. In those days my Grandma was the hub of information as all calls had to go thorough her, so she knew everyone and everything about everyone. Finally everyone got tired of talking and all went to bed.

The next morning I woke up and lying there with not a care in the world, enjoying the bright sunlight, the bids singing and smell of fresh rain from the night before. Then I realized there were some strange noises – chainsaws going, people talking loud. I sat straight up in bed and it all came back to what happen last evening. I jumped up and ran into my dad’s and mom’s bedroom to look out the east window, and I was amazed at what I saw.

It looked like everyone in the world was in my yard. They had saws, axes, trucks, tractors with wagons and they are all working on the big old oak tree. There was a small tree fallen on a garage down the road but we had the biggest tree down and it was going to take a lot of work to clean it up. Plus, we had a car under our tree.

So I hurry and got dressed to get out there so I wouldn’t miss anything. I got outside, and it was like a event and everyone was there. Most of the people were working on the tree or taking turns using the saws or axes or carrying the wood to the trucks and trailers.

Then, the rest were story tellers. So I went around listen to all of the stories that they were telling.

Some were pretty wild, then I spotted some storytellers around my uncle’s car under the tree so I hurried over there to listen. They were talking about how my dad almost got killed and how it would have mashed his head. I idn’t like hearing that so I went listen to some other storytellers.

At noon, the ladies of the area brought food in for the workers – lots of great food. I didn’t do any work also like the old story tellers but we got to eat also with the workers. That afternoon the local merchant store owner came over to me and told me to bring my red wagon over to the store, he puts two wooden case of cold coke in it and told me to take it to the workers and give then a coke and it was my job to bring back the empty bottles I made several trips as everyone like the cold coke even me and the old story tellers got one. The day finally came to a end and the town mess was clean up, a lot of work was done in one day and everyone had fun.

As I was laying in bed that night I was tired even though I didn’t do any work, it was a big day and I had a lot of fun, will always remember it. For a couple weeks afterward people stop in every day to see the car and listen to the story’s how it happens [ most of then was city folks] and of course when dad wasn’t there I would tell then story’s that I heard that day from the old story tellers most didn’t know if they was true or not, I didn’t know if they are true or not either but they was good story’s, especially the story about my dad it got so after awhile I had his hand on the door handle when the tree was coming down and got out of the way the last minute, of course I hope these city folks didn’t know my dad and ask him about it.

It sat there until my uncle got out of the navy which wasn’t to long after the big storm he wasn’t to happy about his car, now he didn’t have a way around. One day his navy buddy and he show up to work on the car. They cut the top off and the front doors, also cut the windshield off then they got it running, my brother and I was watching all of this, my uncle turn to us and said get in let go for a ride he didn’t have to ask twice we jump in and away we went down the road no top, no windshield, no doors, everyone looking, what a great life, what a great uncle, went up to the lake [lone star] and drove around it then headed back home after an hour or so and as we are pulling in there was my mom looking very unhappy, I knew my uncle was in trouble for sure, my brother and I sink down in the backseat while my mother was chewing out my uncle for taking us kids in that car. Afterward I told my uncle he was the best and he just wink and smile. Mom got over it.

If this is to long feel free to cut it, also I’ an not to good at writing so I hope it is all right. Thanks reading it.

– Robert Johnsonm, Lawrence

Icy trip

Returning from a trip to a family wedding in eastern Missouri in mid-January 1971, I stopped to see friends, Don and Karen Cain, south of Ottawa. I planned to drive home to Ulysses that Sunday evening. There was light rain when I arrived at the Cain home at about 5 p.m., but weather reports were ominous. A severe cold front was moving in, and rain would turn to possible sleet, then snow overnight. We had coffee, and then I left quickly in order to get ahead of the approaching front that was predicted for north-central to east-central areas of the state.

Conditions changed suddenly about 18 miles southwest on Old Highway 59. Temperatures dropped rapidly, the wind was strong, and rain turned into a solid sheet of ice within what seemed like seconds. Traffic was rather heavy and fast moving. Cars and trucks began spinning into ditches on both sides

I knew to not use breaks in such conditions, but to avoid hitting other vehicles. I had to break in short pumps, trying to move off the road. Spinning 180 degrees, I was in the ditch, along with about 20 other vehicles. I had not been hit, and almost all traffic was now off the road. Maybe my car would not be struck by an out of control vehicle.

This was long before cell phones, or front wheel drive cars. There were no seat belts. Automobile suspension systems at that time were poor. The old Dodge was upright, and at least for a time, I was in a warm car. I had no injuries. Attempts to drive out were unsuccessful; I was stuck fast in mud and ice. I took some solace to be where there would soon be road assistance, because so many vehicles were in the ditch. This was not the time to panic.

Visibility was almost zero. I could not tell the condition of other cars, or passengers, but I decided to avoid opening the door, or even cracking a window. I began reaching for my coat, gloves and other clothing. Thankfully everything was in the back seat, not in the trunk. I had not included boots or blankets, but there was water and some apples and almonds in the car. I began to worry about whether others might have injuries, or be in need of warm clothes or other supplies. Having no notion about what to do, I just stayed in my car. I reluctantly turned off the engine.

Thankfully, within about 20 minutes, I could see the lights of emergency vehicles flashing. Workers quickly went to each car to see if there were injuries, and to determine whether some vehicles were drivable. Mine was, and they pulled my car out of the ditch. An officer instructed me to drive with other recovered cars about one mile south; then another mile east on a country road. We would find a gas station/cafe where we could stay until we were given further instructions.

A grader/sander led us; our caravan arrived at the cafe safely. I began to relax, only then realizing how tense and frightened I had been. Fellow travelers could finally share experiences with each other. No one knew of serious injuries, but some cars had rolled, and several were damaged. is it grader or grater??

Line-up for the only pay phone was long. I ordered a hot chocolate, and counted my blessings. Gazing out the window, I began to feel very tired and lonely. The ice was now covered with a thick blanket of snow, which still fell heavily.

I thought about our friends who were less than 20 miles away, and had a nice bed available. The longer I waited for the phone, the more compulsive I became to make it back there. I was not acknowledging that we had been told to stay in this place until we had official directions for next steps.

After another hour, I called home to let my husband know what had happened. Then I phoned our friends, the Cains. Don said they had a four-wheel drive truck and a tractor. If I wanted to try driving to their house, they would watch the time. After 90 minutes, he would come out to find me.

Confidently, I left the cafe, walking to my car in at least eight inches of snow, on ice, with no boots. I slowly drove out to the highway and waited for the next grader headed northward. The truck came within a few minutes, and I pulled out to follow. However, this grader was moving faster than I could comfortably drive. When I slowed down, 18-wheelers began passing me. This caused heavy snow and slush to spray over the windshield, and my wipers were not efficient. Going downhill was the most challenging part of the drive. Low gear helped, making breaking seldom necessary.

This adventure seemed to take hours, but, within 45 minutes from the time I left the cafe, I could see lights from Cain’s country drive. The next task was to make a left turn without hitting an on-coming car, or sliding into another ditch. I made it!

What a blessing, to enter the warm home of good friends when stress is high, and the traveler is cold and tired, and in need of a hug. I called my husband, with the long story, and good news of being safe and warm.

– Barbara Palmer, Lawrence

A whirlwind courtship

In late May 2004, some type of tornado event occurred in the Lawrence area. My ignorance of terminology for Midwestern weather events shows in the vague wording I just used about an “extreme weather event” here.

I had come to Lawrence the day before the “event” from lush, late springtime in Oregon. Before I left Oregon, friend after friend had teased me to “watch out for” tornadoes, Oz, Toto, Dorothy, etc. I had laughed about it but actually was taken by surprise because, though of course I knew the story, I was unaware of the pervasiveness of that particular stereotype for Kansas.

When I arrived at KCI airport, the fourth-generation, provincial “West Coast kid” in me was surprised again. I found late springtime in Northeast Kansas to be much like it was in Oregon – sunny, green and rich with water. Though not lush like Oregon, it was sure pretty.

I was obliged to be here because I had agreed, contractually, to a two-day consulting gig as an independent evaluator of a state-funded project at Kansas University. After ending our first day’s work the next day, several of us went downtown for an early evening meal. During our meal, someone said, “Turn around and look out the window.” I did so and saw yellow-green air, with rain blowing sideways and completely horizontal to the ground. By the time we finished eating, the rain and wind had died down so we walked outside to get me back to my hotel. Outside, I immediately smelled a distinct, strong, and ominous “electrical” odor.

After going back to my hotel, I began my routine of prep for the next day’s work. I could hear that the wind had picked up again, but I didn’t pay much attention because I was focused on work and, in my mind, safe inside my hotel.

Around 11:30 p.m. the phone rang in my room, and I wondered who would be calling me. No one in Oregon knew where to reach me except by my Oregon cell phone. That late night call turned out to be from the KU project director who told me “a giant branch has just flown into and through my roof and rain is pouring into my attic area.” I wondered why she was calling me; I could do nothing helpful from my hotel. She had already called some friends who lived down the block, and they arrived to do a temporary fix to secure the gaping hole in her roof to prevent more rain from pouring through.

During the next day’s work session at KU, it was a challenge to maintain the group’s focus. The project director’s helpful neighbor from the night before was also a project staff member, and she and the project director had had little or no sleep. But we pressed on to finish my initial contracted evaluation work here. Another staff member offered to take me to the airport later that afternoon, but the project director insisted emphatically that she would take me.

We had several hours before leaving for the airport, and I was interested in seeing the trunk-like branch that had punctured the project director’s roof, where it had come from, and what the resulting damage looked like. I also wanted to see the project director’s 100-ish year-old house – I had grown up in old farmhouses as a young kid, and I still really love them. When we got to her house she showed me the tree trunk-like “branch” and the jagged hole that it had punched through her roof. While she was dealing with her pets, I had time to browse through her old farmhouse home in the river plain of North Lawrence. It didn’t have a square angle in any wall, window or door.

I also got to see her collage artwork. Her reconstructions of cut-up photographs of old buildings, some intact and some collapsing under the weight of the years, and their countryside surrounds, emphasize “place” in Kansas. And some of her collages capture lightning storms and tornados. All of her collages reflect her perspective on a place as much or more than it reproduces the exact images her camera captures.

One piece was quite different. It’s a striking collage of “Buddha Eyes” set in an old tea tray as a frame. In talking with her about it and seeing her coffee table books and decoupage of Tibetan Buddhist spiritual art and imagery, we realized a shared affinity for “the Middle Way,” of Buddhist philosophy and spiritual practice. I enjoy buying art that I like and that is the work of artists whom I know. I wanted to buy that collage, but she demurred, saying “Maybe we’ll talk about it another time.”

I remember thinking “This woman is of another order of human beings.”

We ended up having to rush to the airport, with no time for anything more than “we’ll be in touch.” I made it onto the plane, got to my seat, sat down, took a few deep breaths and found myself flashing on some lyrics from a late ’60s Steven Stills song: “There’s somethin’ happenin’ here, what it is ain’t exactly clear:”

But it didn’t take long for “things” to become clear. I returned to Lawrence a few weeks later for a visit not connected to work. This time there was no tornado from convergence of climatic forces. We now had to come to terms with the effects of the type of tornado that comes from forces generated by the convergence of two human hearts and souls. “Piece of cake,” as I like to say. I resigned from my independent evaluator contract with the state due to potential conflict of interest brought on by my becoming “nonindependent”; in due time I moved here from Oregon.

So, yes, my first brush with “severe Midwestern weather” in late May 2004 did indeed change my life “in dramatic ways.” A year to the day after my first Midwestern “tornado type event,” we were married on the sunny (and, as if to remind us, windy) sands of the beautiful rugged coastline of the Pacific Ocean where it meets the loamy, weathering bluffs and large rocky outcrops of Oregon.

– Larry Irvin, Lawrence

Storms around the world

Ever since I’ve been alive it seems my mission has been to tell stories about what I’ve seen happening on the streets of this world wherever I wander. I see a lot of the unusual out there, and a lot worth telling about. Sometimes I tell the stories as a storyteller on stage, but usually it’s just by word-of-mouth on the streets. On occasion I write the account as an essay or put it in my field notes for safe keeping, but most often I tell my stories by exhibiting the photographs and other artworks of varied form inspired by my experience.

The following is an excerpt from my book, “Molten Memoirs.”

Hurricane Camille

Big natural disasters came into my personal and spiritual life in 1969, the same year I saw Krakatoa, East of Java. Earlier that summer, I had been thrilled beyond my wildest dreams when I helped end the grueling Cold War Space Race by walking on the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

I built models of the Redstone rocket and the Atlas rocket and the Saturn monster with the LEM moon-lander and the mother ship capsule that would return Neil, Buzz and me from our historic walk. I read Life magazine. Every word, every issue. I was glued to the television like a zombie and living vicariously through the astronauts.

I did my part, they did theirs.

A few weeks after that supreme effort of man overcoming problems in nature, I was suddenly faced with problems of my own. Some that I brought upon myself by going out looking for trouble, and others that were thrust my way and came out of the blue.

I was enrolled in my last summer session at Camp Hugh Beaver in the rolling mountains of Pennsylvania on the more vulnerable side of a movie screen. I was minding my own business and walking to the mess lodge one morning when a series of events throughout the day vaulted me from a young man being battered by the folly of human disasters beyond his control, to a young man battered by the fury of natural disasters instead.

Field Notes: #3

August 21, 1969

The Pocono Mountains

Pennsylvania

As I walked to morning mess I was distracted from thinking about breakfast by a group of the younger squirts who cluttered Camp Hugh Beaver, a vast mountain retreat with otherwise pristine forest, rugged hiking trails and a big clear lake for fishing and swimming and canoeing and skulking in. They had spotted a drought-stressed Copperhead snake surfaced on the lake with a half-eaten frog sticking out of its mouth. As an experienced Camp Hugh Beaver camper, I was well known around those parts for my fondness of snakes and for my ability to capture them, poisonous or not. So I sent one of the squirts up to the nature shed for a “snake jar,” the kind with a huge lid and a lot of room to operate while caging the snake. Instead, while I waded into waist-deep water to capture the Copperhead to massive applause from my peers, the squirt showed up with a small-mouth mayonnaise jar.

Well, I was hungry, and if you didn’t get to the mess lodge early for breakfast, you missed all the best and hottest fare. So I proceeded to make the first of many noteworthy mistakes with nature I have made in my life. Mistakes usually having something to do with the clash between the perfection of nature’s patience and the flawed nature of the understanding of patience by human beings, in this case, me. I was hungry for breakfast and I’d been spurred on by the applause. So instead of emulating nature’s patience and sending the kid back to the nature shed for a bigger jar, I tried to force the Copperhead into the opening of the small one. But, instead of going right in as I wished, the damned snake spit the frog into the jar and then turned and nailed me on the wrist with its poison fangs, before it fell into the jar on top of the frog that it had intended to eat as its breakfast, when out of the blue I’d caught it by the neck.

Five minutes later the counselors had me in the first aid cabin frantically cutting an X on my wrist with an Exacto knife (they couldn’t find the scalpel) and sucking out as much of the venom as they could before rushing me and the jar with the snake and the frog to the hospital at East Stroudsburg for an injection of anti-venom. I became sick to my stomach at the hospital while waiting to die or get better, but I think it was more from the fear of dying than it was from the poison.

An hour later, after leaving the restaurant near the hospital where I finally got “breakfast,” an early afternoon cheeseburger and fries, we arrived back at Camp Hugh Beaver. I was immediately told as I dismounted from the newly christened “Snakebite Van” that it was now being transformed into a “Horseback-riding Van” for 10 campers. I was told by the counselor, that “since you got bit by a poisonous snake today and since we have an extra seat, you get to go horseback riding, no charge.”

He told me I could go horseback riding free because I’d gotten myself bit by a snake. I was eager to get with my cabin mates and to tell them the story of the adventure, but instead I accepted this unexpected reward for my own stupidity, and I remounted the van.

“Shotgun,” I called, “front seat.”

However, halfway through the horseback ride the sky began to fill in and darken with an ominous and quick-approaching storm front that sent us galloping back to the barn and hurriedly on our way in the van back up river toward camp.

We didn’t make it in time.

About five minutes from camp all hell broke out when the brunt of the storm suddenly hit with fierce rains and winds that tried their best to throw the van off the road.

Instead, the force of the boiling front bent power poles whose lines drooped across the path of the van (the metal van with 10 frightened campers in it and one freaked-out counselor at the wheel). With no time to react, we snapped the power lines at 45 miles per hour and a zillion sparks flew like confetti for an instant all around us, and we were all mouth open and surprised to still be alive.

As the counselor proceeded toward the camp in terrified silence out of concern for his own safety and for that of ours, and as trees all around us rocked in their roots, we campers chatted wildly about how we all could have been electrocuted —- —- —- and as suddenly as the power lines appeared, so did the huge falling oak tree near the camp access road that crashed in front of the van and which we hit pretty hard as we tried to slide to a stop in the blinding rain. The counselor backed out of the branches, no injuries and only a mangled bumper and poked-out headlight to show for the confrontation with the oak. He squeezed the van around the left shoulder and we finally made it back to Camp Hugh Beaver.

It was still raining and blowing too fiercely for us to walk the quarter mile to our cabins. So the counselor backed the van up to the loading dock at the mess lodge —- the same place I was trying to get to in the first place this morning when the whole mess with nature started —- and we quickly dismounted. We were glad to be out of that terrifying deathtrap on wheels that had earlier been our horseback riding van and even earlier had been my “Snakebite Van.”

We’d only been in the mess hall for a few minutes, hardly enough time to go to the bathroom or to steal any snacks from the kitchen pantry or to even begin forming a “Thunder Storm Survivor’s Club” —- when suddenly the startling reverberation of a direct hit thunderclap shook the huge log structure, at once silencing all of us to our knees.

Lightning struck the kitchen area and started a fire, sending the counselor and the cooks for fire extinguishes and us campers at frantic command on a sudden, soggy and frightening dash through the raging storm. We passed the lake shore where I was bit by the Copperhead earlier in the day, and then it was on to storytelling glory at a cabin-full of eager ears. My cabin mates were all there and unprepared for my extra bonus stories about falling trees and power lines and lightning fires, while waiting merely to hear whether I had lived through the snakebite or not.

¢¢¢

My field notes from that day and the experiences they described were so real and so big in a 13-year-old’s life that I forgot all about my TV and magazine walk on the moon earlier that summer with Armstrong and Aldrin. I had unexpectedly begun a lifetime of watching and participating in nature with the special zeal and strength furnished to or appropriated from surviving its furies, over and over and over and over again. Even after photographing combat and volcanic eruptions and experiencing other fierce events from the inside out, the day the remnants of Hurricane Camille hit Camp Hugh Beaver still ranks as one of the most exciting and spiritually fulfilling days of my life.

When I got home from camp, I found out the storm I’d survived that day was important enough to so many people that it had been issued a name by the government. The US freaking government. I just thought it was a bad storm, like all the other bad storms I grew up with and saw all the time out the windows of my house. In fact, Camille made its mark in US history by being one of only two hurricanes that made landfall on the US mainland in the 20th century carrying the most severe rating of 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. Its strength fooled the experts of the time because of its small satellite image. It blew in big at 150 miles per hour with 200 mile-per-hour gusts and was so small in size (the eye was only four miles wide) because it was so fierce and it made landfall with an enormous storm surge at Christian, Mississippi. It mowed indiscriminately through Mississippi and Kentucky and then up the East Coast through Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and on to Camp Hugh Beaver, and into my incredible day.

Having found all this out from the television people and having read the newspaper reporter’s accounts as closely as I had ever read newspapers before, even ones about the space program or the ongoing Vietnam riots in the streets, about a storm named Camille —- a named thing that had threatened me personally —- I became enthralled at having been given the opportunity to have participated in its tropical storm rated afterblow.

Oh, sure, I told the Camille story to my friends a zillion times and I’ve stoked myself with the memories of those moments too many times to count. However, I discovered that although the stories from the events were fun to tell, they were only the icing on the cake of the fury.

It was the experience itself that was spiritual and poignant.

To know that Camille was a shared experience among millions of other people somehow made it important (important enough to have been given its own name) and all that attention somehow changed the image of big natural events as I perceived my participation in them. Naming a thing so elusive as a storm gave the storm substance, import, and history, and those things were worth collecting outside the poignancy of the experience itself.

Being there was very cool, but telling people about being there was also a lot of fun. So I began to keep field notes to record my experiences during natural disasters, and at the cabin the weekend before I flew to Montserrat, I realized that Camille had turned out to be a real star. Even after all these years, through all my disasters and other various cataclysms.

– Gary Mark Smith, Lawrence