The Hurricane Party Makes a Good Story

Some parties are infamous, becoming legends. The Hurricane Party of 1969--while Hurricane Camille roared on shore--is one of those parties. But what really happened in Pass Christian, Mississippi all those years ago? Were there really a bunch of hedonists laughing in the face of death, or just a group of people staying together for company? Find out in this episode how a quest to make a memorial led to the truth of what really happened on the Gulf Coast that fateful night.

Transcript

Kennen 0:16

Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode eight. In pass Christian, Mississippi. Sadly, it won't be as fun with all the French names from last week. But the French do stay here because they're the ones that ended up settling along the Gulf coast, near past Christian. But this story won't be as exciting with Imperial families. And inside it will. And instead it will be. Much more of a somber story. But before we get into all of that sadness and the crazy rumors and gossips. We're going to get situated geographically. Pass Christian. Mississippi is a small town, 10 miles west of Gulf port. And about 60 miles east of new Orleans. Driving. So it takes about an hour, an hour and 10 minutes to drive from new Orleans. As of the 2020 census, 6,307 people lived here. it's not puny, but it's not overwhelmingly large. The area of past Christian has been inhabited for thousands of years. No one knows exactly when people started inhabiting there. They just know that they've been there. This is indicated by the amount of shell mounds that used to populate the area. It's really a hallmark of the Gulf coast. So this area has been. Settled for a long time. It wasn't until 1699 that the first French colony was founded a little farther to the east at Biloxi. Nothing really goes on in this part of the country for a long time in 1781, most of the area was owned by a woman named through widow asthma. You're French woman. And when she died, she left a large portion of that land. To a free man of color, Charles as Martin. And this area that he owned, what ended up becoming downtown pass Christian. In 1848 past Christian is officially chartered as a town. It quickly became a beach resort for the new Orleans elite. And the antebellum period. It has some really great beaches and Gulf breezes, which are probably really nice after sitting in their new Orleans summer with no air conditioning. The Southern yacht club was established here in 1849, probably by the same elites. And this is the second oldest yacht club in the U S and the oldest in the south. Just a little. Exciting note. Today pass Christian is known for its seafood processing and a titanium dioxide plant. Just to the north of town. So it doesn't seem that exciting. But it sits in the path of two of the most famous hurricanes in American history. The most recent, of course, being hurricane Katrina. Past Christian is particularly important for hurricane Katrina. Because it is worth the highest storm surge was recorded in that storm at 27.8 feet. Which is also instill the U S record for a storm surge. Almost 30 feet of water pushed by a storm. It's a lot of water and all of this water leveled past Christian up to a half mile inland. Wow. But it was not the first time this had happened. The first hurricane to really, really devastate past Christian was hurricane Camille in 1969. Now. I Have a small pet peeve that people assume that hurricane Katrina is the worst hurricane to ever hit the U S. Ever ever, ever. Nothing can top it. Hurricane Katrina is bad. But I'd argue that hurricane Katrina is the worst hurricane in the United States for the reaction or the lack of a reaction from all levels of government. As well as the. Laziness. And maintaining the levees. Hurricane Katrina was not. The highest death toll. It's not the strongest storm to ever make landfall in the us. It just has one of the saddest stories because of the ineptitude of government. However this other storm, hurricane Camille. Ranks right up there. It is the second, most intense tropical site clone to strike the us. After the 1935 labor day hurricane. Alongside the 1935 labor day hurricane, it is one of four category, five hurricanes to make landfall in the United States. The other two being Andrew in 1992. And most recently, hurricane Michael on the Florida panhandle in 2018. Camille is part of a very, very elite club of hurricanes then. That's that's crazy. I don't think we realize how rare category five making landfall is. But. There you go. There's only been four. And if you've seen the pictures from hurricane Michael in 2018. It's. Crazy. Any pictures after hurricane or wild, Andrew was very big to that. The pictures went viral before. That was a thing. But it's wild to see trees stripped of bark. Or just things just cleanly. Ruined. Not in a pile, but just gone. Other hurricanes will leave debris everywhere, but these category fives are a different beast. Hurricane Camille was initially forecasted to hit the Florida panhandle, but over time, it shifted more and more over to the west until it had passed Christian in its sites. When it arrived on August 17th, 1969 at 11:30 PM. Hurricane Camille was recorded at having peak one minute sustained winds at 175 miles per hour or 282 kilometers an hour. With a minimum pressure of 900 millibars and this is another record. It's the second lowest pressure recorded. After the 1935 labor day hurricane. If you follow hurricane season, These smaller hurricanes can often be the more powerful ones because they're so tightly wound. And hurricane Camille proved this. Hurricane Camille dumped 11 inches of rain and caused a storm surge of 15 feet of water. It also flat and everything along the Mississippi coast and narrowly avoided new Orleans. And destroyed 3,800 homes and businesses. The hurricane made us. the main road along the coast. So impassable that it would take three hours to go from Gulf port pass Christian in the days after hurricane Camille. That's 10 miles. So you're going so slow. But that's just the amount of destruction that Camille left behind. Now. The death toll of CML is an interesting subject. Which as it is with all hurricanes, because people disappear in hurricanes quite easily. It's very creepy. We'll get into more about the death count later in the story, but. The official death count right now is 172. 130 of them, the bodies have been found and 41 are still missing. So it's quite the storm. And you're probably wondering, well, why hurricane Camille? What makes Camille so different than any of the others? And it's a single event that is purported to have happened while hurricane CML roared on shore. And that is the hurricane party at Richelieu Manor apartments. Hurricane parties are a well-known and studied event. And coastal culture or anywhere where there's really tropical cyclones. The people who live there consider them to be a community event. Because preparing for a hurricane, especially a major hurricane. Becomes a community affair. You help your neighbors. You're looking out for your neighbors. So when these neighbors come together, they often form. Hurricane parties. And anybody who comes needs to bring a substantial amount of provisions. Because you're not just expected to last the hurricane itself, but however long after the hurricane. Which we all know that can take a while. Can take. A long, long while. So you're bringing a lot of stuff. It's easy to see why they'd make an event out of it, because if you're not leaving, maybe you haven't been issued evacuation order. But it makes a very scary thing. A little more lighthearted. One article. I read notes that it is more about comradery, food, pooling, and safety and numbers than it is kind of facing. Destruction and death with a laissez-faire attitude. A lot of people who study them, or even who work in emergency services, call them reckless and, and dramatic excuses for parties. And I just don't think that they're really considering it to be a party necessarily in the same event as a birthday party. Some do, there were some crazy anecdotes of people being interviewed about having them. And they're really kind of like, yeah, it's just, it's just a fun time. You get, you get wasted and wait for the hurricane to blow over. I don't know, maybe the last thing you do still, still crazy. So hurricane parties are real. The one we're going to talk about with hurricane Camille, however, is not. It's safe to say that this night, Sunday, August 17th, 1969 has entered American cultural mythology. It's really easy to find stories about this hurricane party. It's brought up a lot in pop culture. And literature. It's not hard to find this myth. But this account says that there were 24 people who partied Camilla way. On the third floor of the Richelieu Manor apartments in past Christian. Now you can go here. It's not, it's not forbidden. It's not fenced off for anything. The Richelieu Manor apartments were at the corner of Henderson avenue and us 90, which is in front of the Gulf of Mexico. It looks really nice on, on Google street view. I mean, you just have this wide Vista. Of the ocean. However that white Vista also is the death now for hurricane. After hurricane Camille wiped the apartments off, it became a shopping center. And that lasted until hurricane Katrina wiped that off the map. Now it's a public park. There's not many trees. I mean, it just looks like an empty lot with a park sign in front of it. So it's really quite a stark. Place and probably a good reminder of what nature can do. In this hurricane party while they were having fun on the third floor of this apartment, eventually the building. Gave out and disintegrated into the storm surge and swept all of the partiers away and killed all of them, but one person. Now it's fair to say that some of the details may vary depending on who's telling the story, but that's basically it, people partied away in this apartment. They all disappeared except one. And there was nothing left. The story entered the mythology quite fast. It became the basis for a plot line in a made for TV movie in 1974 called hurricane starring Larry Hackman. Have I dream of Jeannie fame and Jessica Walter. Who is known for arrested development. A lot of people became very intrigued about this hurricane party story, because it's very flamboyant and he can mystic. After the hurricane, people were trying to follow the threads back to the original person and this person was named Marianne Gurlack. She was one of the first people to talk to reporters after the hurricane. And it all went downhill from there. She would claim later in an oral history. That quote, the first thing that popped into my mind was party time. We all got together and decided we were going to have a hurricane party on the third floor. And quote. This is where it all started. She began to spin this story. To the point where even Walter Cronkite picked it up. Now imagine Walter Cronkite was the reliable voice for many Americans in the sixties and seventies, or ended up until his retirement. What he says kind of was taken as the truth all the time. And he has a very famous shot. I've tried to find this and I could not. But he has a very famous scene where he stands on the concrete slab of the Richelieu Manor, apartments foundation. And says, quote. This is the site of the Richelieu apartments and pass Christian, Mississippi. This is the place where 23 people laughed in the face of death. And we're 23 people died and quote. So imagine you're seeing that on TV, you'd probably roll your eyes and be what Dumbo is. We're going to party away in front of a hurricane. Why didn't they leave? They knew it was coming. Hurricanes are not exactly a new phenomenon. They knew what was going to happen. Why not leave? Which is probably why the story became so infamous. However, as Walter Cronkite appeared on one. Woman's television. She realized that her son was most likely dead. Her husband, Hubert Duckworth then drove from Jackson, Mississippi, where they lived to pass Christian to find a son's body. This man eventually ran into his son's friend and asked him, well, where's my son's body and the friend responded quote, Ben isn't dad. I've seen him and he's all right. End quote. So people knew quite quickly that this story. Was not exactly true. But yet it persisted. While the locals all knew that it was wrong. It never made it international news how wrong it was. People just consistently pedaled this idea. That a bunch of people who did not take safety seriously? Party to hurricane away and paid the ultimate price for it. In fact, the civil defense director of past Christian, what published a true account, refuting the myth. Every week in his newspaper. Nobody picked it up. Why would they believe anybody else? It kind of just floated around for three decades. Until a couple Julia and Wade guys. Became extremely curious and interested in the story. Part of this is that they worked in civil defense, also in the area for Gulf port and the county. They wanted to construct a Memorial for the 30th anniversary of hurricane CML. They wanted to etch all of the names of the deceased onto it. It's a very touching idea. Part of that. However, meant that. They had to then find a comprehensive list. Of who was dead and who was not. And go through and fact check. To see if they were really dead, if they really were missing. It became a massive project. Unfortunately, Wade passed away before it was ever finished. And his wife Julia took over. She wouldn't get any stories. She could get her hands on and she would visit and talk with anybody would tell her anything. She would go through the entire story multiple times. Follow all the leads to figure out who really should be on the list and who is not on the list and who is probably mistakenly on the list. Her quest ended up coming to the attention of one of the survivors from Richelieu Manor, Ben Duckworth, the man who was presumed dead by his parents. He acquiesced to an interview with the Biloxi son, Harold in 2001. And his quote, I think is extremely poignant. He says, quote, We were exhausted from boarding up windows and to helping the police move cars. We were too tired to party. I can't tell you why that story persists or why people didn't put two and two together. I guess the hurricane party makes a good story. I'm not down here to tell a story. Something inside me said that I need to tell what I know that I need to set the record straight. And to quote. So, what is the true story? Because it's very, he said, she said. There were 23 people who were known to have stayed in their apartments at Richelieu manner during hurricane Camille. Eight of those people would die that night. However it wasn't this hedonistic party atmosphere. Those 23 people. Well, most of them, some of them are elderly or in bed, recovering from surgeries. Most of them were very active that day. As Ben said, they were involved with boarding up a lot of the windows with helping people move. With getting everything ready for a storm, they knew that was going to be very bad. It didn't help that past Christian would end up being in the hurricanes, right. Front quadrant, which is the worst part. It is the part with the strongest storm surge and highest winds. And they stayed. Thinking that their building was safe. The manager had said, this building has been built with steel. It's a civil defense shelter. It should withstand anything that nature can throw out of it. It's well-built. However it did not last, obviously. Ben Duckworth kind of became the unofficial face of the survivors of richly manner. Apartments. And he was the one that said the manager had told us all of this. The manager was not wrong and expecting it to last because four years earlier, when hurricane Betsy came. It had only flooded the ground floor and there was little structural damage to the building. They were going off anecdotal evidence that would prove to be the total opposite. Of hurricane Camille. Ben did say however that a traveling salesman did stop by and said, Hey, let's get some beers and let's make this a party. But that's where the quote came from, that they were too tired. They did not want to party sit around, drink beer. They want to get ready for this hurricane. They knew it was going to be bad. So let's traveling salesmen kept on going and went on to new Orleans. That night Ben and seven other people stayed in the apartment. Number three 16. He said the atmosphere was tense that no one really was excited. One of the women there made a pot roast to help make the atmosphere a little more homey. A little more like a normal Sunday, like it should have been. However it did not get any better. Around 11:14 PM ben went to check the water level in the stairwell. And as he went back and reported to the group, if the building holds up for just 16 more minutes, we'll be okay. Fairly soon after he had said that that building began to fall apart. One article described it as the building zipping itself. Which is a nice image. Nice image in the sense of descriptive, but terrible, terrible experience to live through. The wilds gave out. The sheet rock crumbled, just disintegrated and they all fell into the storm surge. They all got separated despite their best efforts. The lady who made the pot roast would end up being one of the eight who died. An elderly woman who was very infirm and on the back of Ben's friend, she would get swept away as well. Ben managed to hit a tree limb with his body and then grab onto it. He would sit there for over five hours. Earlier that day, Ben had put on a swimsuit underneath which 1960 swimsuits. The tight spandex ones kind of like mini shorts. That would be the only thing that stuck to his body for the rest of the night. His clothes were torn away. He said, quote, every time I'd raise my head, the wind would suck the air right out of me. The sound of the wind was terrifying and quote. He didn't know it at the time, but he would get a giant gash in his leg. The saltwater and pounding winds would cauterize the wound. Impressive. And the not a good way, but just wild and the cauterization did end up saving his life. But he had to sit in a tree until 5:00 AM. Now imagine climbing out of a tree with just a spandex swimsuit. Your leg has a gash in it. And the town you knew is now gone. People start. Coming out and trying to start collecting their lives. Overwhelming over overwhelming. Ben would end up convalescing at his parents' house and later up in Memphis. He took it upon himself to tell family members of the people that they had been in the apartment with that they have not died partying. But they were not. Being careless. He made that very clear. However Ben would not. Discuss hurricane Camille very often with his friends and family, or even in public. It wasn't really, until the guy says. Started their crusade to build the Memorial. After Ben's dad found him. People we're now starting to realize that the story that was being broadcast across the nation was faults. And the locals tried to stop it. People would try to talk to reporters and say, this is the true story of hurricane Camille and pass Christian. This is what happened at Richelieu. Manner. However with the damaged infrastructure. And the lack of a sensational story that, that one provided. It never really caught on in national news. It wasn't until Ben's interview in 2001. The Biloxi sun Herald did that, that began to be picked up nationally and became widely distributed. The story of the person who. First pedaled, the rumor is worth talking about. Marianne Gurlack also lived in Richelieu manner, but her experience that night was also far from a party. Her and her husband lived and one of the apartments. And they too had stocked up on food and alcohol and other provisions to ride out the hurricane. Both of them had worked a late shift the night before. And so fell asleep. They will come up to the moment that building crumbled. Marianne Gerlach took a, every person for themselves attitude. She would eventually jump out into the water cling to debris. And survive the night, her husband Fritz could not swim, which is slightly ironic. Given the fact that he worked in the Navy. But he could not swim and was one of the eight that died that night. Why would she come up with this? It kind of came out later in 1982. When she was on trial for murdering her 11th husband. Her lawyer tried to use her experience and Camille as proof of her insanity. One of the quotes from the legal documents from the court case says this quote, life has been essentially an Odyssey of catastrophe and perversion. There can be little doubt, but that she is decidedly psychotic. She is a textbook case. All of this evidence, however, runs smack dab into the rule, which in layman's terms, states that just because you were crazy does not mean you are legally insane. And quote. So she was in a sense, a human hurricane. Wreaking havoc and destruction, wherever she went. And having 11 husbands. And that's. It has to be a record somewhere. I don't know who keeps track of that. It's come out that she was obviously a very unreliable narrator. Maybe she had a flare for knowing what would be. Picked up in the news and be sensational and be. Well received by a bunch of eager listeners. Crazy vow it. It just blew way out of proportion. However Ben Duckworth would go on to live a very successful life. He ended up dying in 2013 from cancer. As his obituary states, he is well remembered for being a consummate Southern gentleman. It's a nice little ending for a very, very tragic story. A story with a dash of crate. Well, not a dash a hurricane, a crazy. Thanks Marianne. It's just, it's really sad. And then it's sad that past Christian just gets hit again, some places are just unlucky and geography. But they've got that water so warm. It's so nice to go to that beach. Well, that's the story of the hurricane party of hurricane Camille in 1969. Don't believe everything you hear about hurricane parties. And if you're ever invited. Don't go. Get out. Don't stay in a hurricane. This episode also concludes the first season of the nifty 50 show, which you may say eight. That's not that many. But I have a new series, an idea coming for this, and I need it to be a whole section because. We are going to drive interstate 80. We're going to be armchair travelers and we will drive interstate 80 coast to coast. Talk about all of the fun things that are really close to that route. I've driven it so many times. So. There's lots of talk about. Look for that in the coming months, that'll be out soon. But thank you for listening to this first season and can't wait to travel IAT with you. See you soon.