Product Description

"Rain is likely tonight, ending tomorrow. Thursday will be fair and cooler." So began the final and most destructive act of Hurricane Camille, a storm so ferocious that scientists calculated the odds as once in a thousand years. In 1969, meteorologists were yet to have satellite and computer technology at their disposal, and the National Hurricane Center’s director, Dr. Robert Simpson, could only rely on his instincts to predict Camille’s track.

The Category Five storm, with wind gusts over 200 miles per hour, tore into the Mississippi/Alabama coast, erasing entire towns. At a hurricane party on a rooftop a few miles from where Camille made landfall, the nearly three-story tidal storm surge—the highest ever measured—collapsed the entire building and swept 23 people to their deaths. Incredibly, the worst was yet to come.

As Camille hit the mountains of western Virginia she also collided with two other weather systems that squeezed millions of tons of water out of the storm like a sponge. It didn’t just rain; the air held nearly the maximum amount of water theoretically possible, becoming a solid body of descending liquid, and lightning flashed sideways. Eight hours and more than two feet of rain later, 124 people in rural Nelson County were dead. Many of them, taken by the devastating floods, would never be found.

Roar of the Heavens tells Camille’s destructive hour-by-hour story through the riveting first-person accounts of survivors and key players, including Dr. Simpson, who would later help to pioneer the universal Saffir-Simpson Scale for hurricanes; Mary Ann Gerlach, the lone survivor of that hurricane party, who was later found clinging to a tree five miles away; and William Whitehead, the very untraditional sheriff of Nelson County, who became a central figure in the storm’s aftermath. At the height of school desegregation, blacks and whites came together to rebuild, and students worked together with locals who had so recently attacked them for demonstrating against the Vietnam War.

Camille’s ferocity exposed the inadequacies of the nation’s ability to deal with such a cataclysmic event and led directly to the creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Yet Roar of the Heavens is also a cautionary tale, as the United States is still terribly unprepared to deal with hurricanes. When Katrina came ashore as a Category Four hurricane in 2005, over 1,000 lives were tragically lost, and experts agree that it is only a question of time before another Category Five storm hits the U.S. mainland.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #311985 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Publisher
"A riveting account of what it was like to live through the most intense hurricane ever to strike the U.S. mainland." —John Grisham

Hurricane Camille, packing winds over 200 miles per hour, slammed into Mississippi’s Gulf Coast on August 17, 1969, killing 23 people, sweeping enormous tankers miles inland, and leaving behind 100,000 tons of debris. Yet her real fury would be unleashed a thousand miles inland and two days later.

This is the story, told by the survivors and key players, of a meteorological event so powerful and rare that scientists estimate it’s possible only once in a millennium. Camille approached the theoretical limits of what weather can do, and those who witnessed her wrath will never forget the Roar of the Heavens.

"Roar of the Heavens details the unthinkable that can occur…the immeasurable power of water was never so real." —Jim Cantore, host of The Weather Channel’s Storm Stories

"Gripping…compelling…ranks with Isaac’s Storm." —Dr. Robert Simpson, former director, National Hurricane Center

About the Author
Stefan Bechtel is the author or co-author of six books, which have sold over two million copies. He is a founding editor of Men’s Health magazine, and his work has appeared in Esquire, The Washington Post, Reader’s Digest, and many other national publications.

Customer Reviews

Author perpetuates the myth of the "Hurricane Party"
The book rambles on. I suppose it's good reading at times, but as far as being well researched (as so many gush about here), it isn't well researched at all. There was no "hurricane party" at the Richelieu Apartments on the night of Camille's landfall. That is a complete myth, but one that will not die--the national media is apparently not interested in the facts; ditto for this author. Mary Ann Gerlach (who, btw, was convicted of killing her 11th!!! husband in 1979, but paroled in the early '90s) was not the only survivor of those 23 who stayed on at the Richelieu that night. Two other Richelieu survivors--Ben Duckworth and Mike Gannon--have tried to set the record straight for years, but the myth stays alive, and people eat it up like catfish. The fact is that only eight of the Richelieu 23 died. Gannon and Duckworth (and a few more) were staying in the apartment of an elderly couple, Zoe and Jack Matthews, to help take care of them during the storm. Mrs Matthews had recently had hip surgery. Another couple, Rick and Luane Keller, were also in the group. Luane perished, but Rick survived. Gerlach's husband Fritz (husband #6), also perished.

Camille was no lady
Stefan Bechtel brings forth the riveting stories of survival
during the infamous Hurricane Camille of August,1969.
Beginning with her nerve-rattling approach and eventual landfall on the Gulf Coast,through her thousand-mile trek of death,destruction,and despair from Louisiana and Mississippi to
Virginia,Bechtel`s vivid details are as gripping as a fine novel.His book easily draws ample comparisons to Erik Larson`s
"Isaac`s Storm" and to Judith Howard`s recent "Category Five".
Bechtel does not fail to include comparisons with Hurricane
Katrina in his book.
Roar Of The Heavens has 308 pages and contains a sizable amount
of both rare and classic photographs.
This book was endorsed by writer John Grisham and by weatherman
extraordinaire,Jim Cantore.

I Felt Like I Was in the Eye of the Storm
This is a terrific read; awe-inspiring, evocative, moving, and informative. Not only does the author vividly portray the humans caught in Killer Camille, their lives, and places, and times. But what I really found remarkable is how he also brings to eerie life the deadly storm herself, as though she had a personality and intelligence driving her destructive rampage. It reads like a detective story, meticulously chronicling the hunt for -- and the death and destruction caused by -- a serial killer created by nature. Couldn't put it down.