Photo by Jack Hanrahan
No one who was here in August 1969 needs to be told what a Category 5 hurricane can do.
That was the year Camille deposited this 72-foot-long tug onto a patch of land along coastal Highway 90 in Gulfport. It was originally called the East Point, according to stories in the Biloxi Sun-Herald, but the family who owned the land it fell on bought it and renamed it the SS Hurricane Camille.
The owner opened a gift shop near the stern to cater to the tourists who would stop to snap pictures. But the gift shop, like nearly everything else nearby, got washed out by Katrina.