 It began before dawn, early Sunday morning. Yes, get me golf board, civil fence. Yes, Mr. Bill. For 24 hours, the whole Gulf Coast has been on Hurricane Watch, people sleeping at their posts. And now... Yes? Julie, mobile weather says it's coming. Wake everybody up. For three days now, a new hurricane's been running loose along the southern coast. A lady called Camille, supposedly headed toward the Florida Panhandle, but like any lady, perfectly capable of changing her mind. The 7 a.m. bulletin from the Weather Bureau. Camille, a small but extremely dangerous storm, is now shifting westward, moving towards the Mississippi coast. Small craft should seek safe harbor. In Gulf Board and Biloxi, the emergency operating centers already have been put on full alert. By Wade and Julia Geis, a husband and wife team. Both local civil defense directors. Wade for Harrison County, which covers most of the Mississippi coastline. And Julie for Biloxi, its largest city. The hurricane flags go up. The warnings go out. The Red Cross shelters are now being opened in Bay St. Louis, past Christiane, Gulfport, Long Beach, and Biloxi. Bring your garbage cans inside. Secure everything that's movable. All windows should be nailed and boarded. Tides of 15 feet are expected. All residents of the low-lying areas are advised to evacuate by noon today. To Hattiesburg or Jackson. Transportation will be provided and sheltered. Please bring all the things you actually need in shelter. Most people take the advice to get out. And cars start streaming north. Sunday afternoon, Camille brushes past the mouth of the Mississippi. At first, she only blows a few shingles off the roofs. Then she begins ravaging the whole Louisiana Delta. Upriver, the levees are beginning to crumble under pressure of wind and water. Finally, at Burrus, the levee breaks. Time to get out. And now, the few who lingered are running for their lives, north to New Orleans, and safely. By late afternoon, advanced winds are touching the Mississippi coast. The slowpokes are still gassing up. And civil defense workers and local police are going door to door, trying to route the stragglers out. No, we're not getting out. Well then, would you give me the names of your next of kin? Say, you're serious about this, aren't you? Mr. I've never been more serious than my life. Martha, let's pack up. But we'll get up on the third floor. The water won't get that high. But if the first and second floor go, the third floor is coming down. Excuse me. Come in, come in. Welcome to the hurricane party. A hundred thousand people have listened and left. Left behind, the young will think nothing can ever hurt them. The unbelievers who plan to ride it out. The sightseers. The thrill seekers. The stubborn. 6.30 p.m. Sunday in Biloxi, Mississippi. And the hurricane is really beginning to be felt here. As you can see, the palm trees are blowing, the rain is beginning to increase, and the sea is beginning to churn in the Gulf. It promises to be a long, long night in Biloxi. City office to rescue White. We have a call on Sandy Hook Road at Henniston Point 3, subject to traffic and automobile. In Gulfport in Biloxi, half a dozen trained volunteer rescue teams in heavy-duty trucks and ducks are answering the first calls for help. By 8 o'clock, power lines are falling, starting fires, and winds are quipping them out of control. Even in New Orleans, on the outer edge of the storm, Camille's beginning to cause problems. Along the industrial canal, another levee breaks begins flooding part of the city. When this is strong, one can hardly stand up in it. The rain, these torrential streets are flooded. We are cut off from the outside world in our motel here. There is no power, everything is black. Already one of Gulfport's heavy-duty rescue teams is in trouble. Rescue Red has gone out on one mission too many. Their truck is swamped in the rising tide. The hell with the radio and the equipment? Abandon your machine. Power poles are falling, live wires sizzling in the streets. Staying out now is suicide. The surge rises in front of the storm, 20 to 30 feet high. It sweeps inland with irresistible force, smashing boats, collapsing buildings, wrecking everything in its path. At midnight, the eye of the hurricane crosses east of Bay St. Louis, and winds of 200 miles an hour complete to destruction. Outside, in the wind and water, people are dying. But now, there's nothing anyone can do. They called it the American Riviera, the loveliest beach in the South. Now, when seldom top 120 miles an hour, camels have reached 200 tornado intensity, but cutting a wider swathe than any tornado that ever lived. From Biloxi to Bay St. Louis, everything's in shambles. Down the Delta, it's not much better. In Buras, where the levee broke, there were 6,000 homes. Now, only 6 are fifth to live in. Everything's flooded out. Even the graveyards are 6 feet under. In Louisiana, the damage is enormous, but the casualty list is low. Mississippi's losing on every count. Survivors are stumbling out of the shelters, still dazed by what they've been through, and at seeing how little is left. It's bound to be in here somewhere because all these are the houses that came from in this vicinity. They're all ready in here in this neighborhood, but mine was wrapped down in the corner, and I don't even see it. No, no! Some are lucky, others less so. You can't imagine devastation as complete as this. When we came over Monday, we thought we were going to still find our home. When we walked up the street and saw it level, we knew that whoever stayed would not be here. Here lie the Rishi Lou apartments in past Christiane, where some of the tenants refused to get out. But we'll get up on the third floor. The water won't get that high. Come in, come in! Welcome to the hurricane part of it. 24 people decided to write it out at the Rishi Lou. 23 died when the building collapsed. One youngster floated out a third-floor window on a mattress and lived. The man on the second floor, he had a drink, and he told me to come on up and join a party that they were going to stay on the third floor, and I told him, no, this was too serious. I told him to get out. The man said, well, this is my property, and if you're going to arrest me, go ahead and arrest me. So I called a civil defense man, and the last thing he told me was to go back and get his address of the next akin so we can notify him. The man, he looked at me and he laughed. Now, Camille's almost become a forgotten woman. She whips through northern Mississippi at a furious pace and then slows down, becomes just a heavy thunderstorm as she crosses into Tennessee. Then she turns east toward the Appalachians and the Atlantic. The storm rises over the Blue Ridge Mountains, runs into cold air, and torrential rains start falling, more than 27 inches in less than six hours, two to three feet of water for every inch of land. And suddenly, flash floods are roaring down every hill and hollow, starting landslides, smashing houses, burying people in their sleep. Every river in central and western Virginia is in full flood. The tide, the buffalo, rockfish, green brine, the big and middle canals. Waynesboro is under eight feet of water, Glasgow and Scottsville, 14. In Richmond, Governor Godwin puts state civil defense in charge of all rescue and relief operations. Backs them up with all the state's resources, beginning with the National Guard. The mountains tell the story. Every ravine scarred by landslide, every valley a mass of mud. And under the mud, the dead. A dozen hamlets like Davis Creek, Tyro, Massie's Mill are almost wiped out. It just came down through this area, just like an ocean wave, more or less. And these people right in here, they just didn't have a chance. It just took all these houses through here. How many are dead or missing here in Massie's Mill? They are a total count of 23 gone. She asked me, I bring a dozen or two times, if a little house is gone, when did it go? I told her it's been gone long time. Was anyone living in the house? Yes, and there's all of a boy and his wife and two little children. Little children they got drowned. Bridges are out, highways buried. In many places there's no way in except by helicopter. At first everyone's going in circles. Then quickly it straightens out and health begins pouring in. All the smaller streams keep pouring water into the great historic river of Virginia, the James. And from Lynchburg to Richmond, the city's downstream are in the deepest danger they've known in a century. Sandbagging works. Some water backs up into Richmond through the sewer system, floods the low-lying areas, but the levees hold. One night of rain in the mountains has cost 106 lives. More than 75 are still missing. Almost as many lost as in Mississippi. But through quick work by disaster units, only two more people have died in the enormous floods that followed. In Mississippi... Gulfport clearly accepted the brunt of this start. This downtown area, as you can well see, looks like a nuclear holocaust was here. There's nobody here yet because the National Guard and the State Police are not yet letting anybody in. How many bodies have you found so far? This one makes 19 for us. The coroner's report last night about 8 o'clock was 88 confirmed in Harrison County. ABCBs and civil defense rescue teams are combing the backwoods for more. Up and down the beach, Coast Guard planes and choppers are searching the waters offshore for bodies. No one knows how many have died. There's no water except from broken mains, with the inevitable threat of typhoid. No power. No food. No nothing. Suddenly a thousand problems are overwhelming the few who have to meet them. Governor's mansion to Harrison Civil Defense. Did Henry Carroll tell you about this man in Connecticut who's sending some water purifiers down? All righty. I got a message for Colonel Dent State Civil Defense Director. Wade, do you have a 30k, 3 phase generator uncommitted? Careful, Skipper. We're un-crating one now. You're trucking it, buddy. I don't need it. Okay, if you use it, we can get two units coming in from Pennsylvania. Heavy duty rescue trucks, generator, high intensity lights, 25 to 30 man crew. Yes, we need rescue units, but trains self-contained rescue units. We can't feed them, we can't sleep them, and tell them to bring their own water. 10 full of them. Helps a coming. In New Orleans, a rampart street parade to collect money for the hurricane victims. From California, Florida, a dozen states, food and clothing are being airlifted into Kiesler Air Force Base in Biloxi. Volunteer rescue teams are coming in from everywhere. But more important in the long run, Air Force II is bringing in the Vice President, Secretary Romney, and the head of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, George Lincoln, who will have the job of coordinating all federal assistance to the stricken areas. To meet the governors, John McKethan of Louisiana, John Bel Williams of Mississippi, and try to get things moving. House trailers for the homeless. Food for the hungry. Medical supplies. Emergency generators from Civil Defense, a thousand other things. From Washington, John E. Davis, National Director of Civil Defense, comes in to confer with Governor Williams and local CD officials. We'll fly in too, from the Western White House. Mississippi, Louisiana, Virginia, and part of West Virginia have all been declared major disaster areas, and will get all the help the government can give them. In the Delta country, they're still flooded out. In Virginia, cleanups already begun. Not really down, I don't think. Just a little wet, double with mud. I hope everybody in town sort of takes it on the chin and starts all over again. It's gonna be tough. I don't know whether everybody can afford it or not, but I'm gonna give it a whirl. What are you gonna do for money? Who needs money? Just a lot of hope, right? Well, yeah, and a lot of credit, I hope. Everyone seems to be in high spirits. Why is that? I don't know. Mississippi is still in the worst shape of all, but food and clothing are pouring in, being distributed by Red Cross and Salvation Army. What are you looking for now? I'm trying to find me some breaches, but I don't know where this part is. You ever think you'd be out here looking for clothes in a gymnasium? No, sir. I never thought I'd ever do that. So you lost your shirt. What now? I don't know. Start over again. I got the clothes I got on in $22 in my pocket. And if I'd have had it so, I'd have picked some better clothes. Thousands are homeless, have to be evacuated north to Hattiesburg or Jackson. The sick and injured are being airlifted out. No one knows yet how many have died or why they ignored the warnings and stayed behind. Mr. I don't know why they stayed, but I know why I left. I kept this thing 200 miles behind me, and I'll do it again. I won't ever stay and wait to see what's going to happen. And this is my first hurricane. I didn't know enough to get out. This is my last time I'm going to sit down here. In the most zone, this is my last one. My house was under 12 feet of water, and I've seen about all my family has been head-to-head destruction of their homes. And we... And I hope I never see nothing like this again. I'm out of your home, but it takes this hard blow. Can you understand why anybody would stay here? Does that make sense to you? No, not. Certainly not now. Look at all this. I wish I'd stuck around and gone with the house. Others mean to hang on. And did you weather the storm in your house? Yeah, we'll never do it again, I'll tell you that. What happened when the roof came off? I almost had all the attacks. It was awful. And you planned to rebuild and move back to Basing Horse? Yes, that's my home. You planned to rebuild, or what will you do now? Well, there's nothing else to do in this part of my house still there. So I have to go back. That's all we have. I have a blind husband, and that's our roots. But there's one thing for sure. We'll rebuild. We've got a beautiful country down here. We'll make it beautiful again. Nearly everyone along the beachfront has been wiped out. Their houses wrecked or vanished. Some have lost everything, including hope. But surprisingly, on every third or fourth lot along the beach, American flags are being planted, flying defiantly. Maybe to tell the world, we aren't down yet. Now people are beginning to pick up the pieces. What are you looking for down there? Money and all sorts of things like spoons, forks, knives, parts of mirrors, parts of plates, razor blades. Have you found anything? Yep, money, spoons, razor blades. How much money did you find? 498. How long are you going to keep digging? Till I have to go home. The monstrous job of cleanups begun, and more than 8,000 military men, army, CVs, national guard, Corps of Engineers, airmen from Fisler Field, are pitching in to help out. In seven long days since thousands of rescue workers have seen a bed, or their homes, or their wives. Julie, you still am? How are you, honey? Tired. It's Saturday night, and it's been one hell of a week. Let's go home. One week since Camille swept over the Gulf Coast, and then went on to die somewhere out in the Atlantic. And the survivors are gathering in the ruins of their churches. We come to mourn those we have lost, and to give thanks, we who are left, or whatever we do have left. For many, what's left is little indeed. Rebuilding is bound to take years, and for some, it seems an almost impossible task. I don't know if you'd ever be felt like. So I think you'd just be like a dream to us. It'll never be the same. But others know better. We'll rebuild. Just go a little stronger. Got a beautiful country down here. We'll make it beautiful again.