I remember hearing stories after Hurricane Camille that many lives were lost due to the fact that folks rented beach front hotel rooms for "Hurricane Parties" ... but I've since learned that was not true. Some lives were lost though because folks did not heed the evacuation warnings.

I remember when Hurricane Donna came up through the central part of the state of Florida back in 1960. My family lived in coastal Virginia still and by the time that storm reached us up there it was still a category I storm ... a tree came through our roof. I was only 12 years old but I clearly remember that big tree coming down through the roof. We had Hurricane David come through Daytona Beach in 1979, it was a Cat I storm and did some minor damage.

Then of course in 2004 we had Charley, Frances and Jeanne all hit us within a six week period!! Lots of damage and many homes and businesses still had blue tarps covering their roofs over a year later. We were so very fortunate and only lost a lot of trees on our property but had no structural damage to the house, shed, boat/trailer etc. We were without electricity for a little over a week but many had it far worse so we felt blessed. I don't remember what kind of trees were uprooted or torn in half but the Hickories, Maples and Crepe Myrtles all stood strong!

I don't know about "renting" hotel rooms for beach parties, but there were definitely "Hurricane Parties" held in many homes and apartments before Camille came ashore. Many of those lost their lives and this is all well-documented.

Hurricane Camille was a Cat. 5 hurricane. There haven't been many of those in recorded US history. In fact, because her winds were so strong and actually were off all the charts, she was labeled a "Super Cat. 5". We have lots of superlatives thrown around today, but in 1969, that label really fit the "lady".

I have lived through every category hurricane there is, from a Cat. 1 through the Cat.5. A Cat. 1 is something like 75 mph sustained winds. That's a laugher. What people don't understand, and certainly those who have never been through a hurricane, is the unrelenting winds for such a long time. Tornadoes are terrible, I mean really, really terrible, but they last perhaps a minute or two. Hurricanes, at least those that are Cat. 3-5, can last for 4, 6 even 8 hours. Other than the eye, the winds just don't stop. I have had pine needles driven deeply into a solid oak door. What force can do that? Experiencing the eye of a hurricane is weird, really weird.

Before one hurricane, hurricane Fredrick, I was in Birmingham, AL, visiting my brother. As soon as I realized that the hurricane was going to hit the Mississippi Gulf coast, my wife and I packed our bags and headed SOUTH. Talk about eerie. Cars and trucks were bumper-to-bumper, all going NORTH. The only vehicles headed south were me and emergency vehicles. I kept telling my wife: "I just know we are going to be pulled over and the highway patrolman is going to ask: "Do you folks know what you are doing!?" We never got stopped. Even today, I am amazed we got to the coast. We got home a couple of hours before the hurricane "really" hit. Our neighborhood was vacant - totally vacant. We found out the following day, when a policeman came to the house to see if we were OK, that they had swept the entire town, and those who refused to leave had to give the policeman/policewoman their names and their next-of-kin. The police had evacuated my neighborhood a couple of hours before we arrived back home.