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CAMILLE: 20 Years 'Later
Survivors glory in the sight of flag
By KAT BERGERON
THE SUN HERALD
Amid the rubble that was once the thriving American Riviera, the sight of Old Glory waving defiantly on a twisted flagpole galvanized South Mississippi-ans to rebuild their storm-battered lives and homes.
Suddenly, flags began flying everywhere as inspired residents, hammers in hand, set about remaking what Hurricane Camille had shattered in 12 nightmarish hours.
The first of many flag scenes was captured in the early morning of Aug. 18, 1969, by a Daily Herald photographer recording Camille’s devastation in Pass Christian.
Ron Elias’s photograph of an American flag, atop a bent pole surrounded by devastation, touched the hearts of thousands, including many in other states whose newspapers pulled it from the Associated Press national wire.
Bob McHugh, the Herald’s associate editor who had lost his own home, compared the Pass Christian scene to the World War II Marine flag-raising at Iwo Jima and the subsequent photograph that captured the imagination of a war-torn nation.
The Herald’s front-page Camille photo had a similar effect on the Coast. Shortly after its Aug. 21 publication, 6,000 American flags stood on lawns and atop wrecked homes and businesses from Waveland to Pascagoula.
Editorial applauded courage
McHugh’s editorial under the five-column photograph did not mention flags as a symbol, though the caption declared, “Old Glory Midst Destruction Still Waves in Home of the Brave.” His words that day centered on courage and the need to lift up the Coast’s collective boot straps.
“The winds have blown themselves out, ” wrote McHugh. “The waters have receded and left us in the midst of rubble and ruin. Spirits are sagging. The shock has worn off. The excitement is gone. We are weary. Our courage is sagging.”
And the flag waved on.
McHugh’s Aug. 26 editorial honed in on the Elias photograph that had caused much comment.
“Since then, a number of people have dropped into the Daily Herald offices to tell us of the unusual number of flags flying in valiant defiance of the wreckage wrought by the worst storm to hit the continental United States in recent history,” McHugh wrote.
“We gather that Gulf Coast residents are telling the world that they are far from licked. They have spontaneously seized upon Old Glory as a rally point.”
Flags shipped in
But the Herald did more than photograph and write about the flag craze, which was being hampered by short supplies and few whole businesses to sell them. The newspaper contacted the Tamm-Vogt
SUN HERALD FILE PHOTO
A single photograph of a flag waving from atop a pile of rubble inspired Camille survivors.
Co., a flag distributor in St. Louis, Mo., and through a special arrangement, sold more than 2,000 Stars & Stripes for $1 each.
“We are offering flags and staffs at considerably less than cost to the spirited among us who want to have a part in what the Gulf Coast is telling the world about its ability to rebuild,” the Herald told readers, who flocked to its offices every time a flag shipment arrived.
“It is our way of saying that self pity is a base emotion and a waste of time. It is a colorful way of putting the world on notice that the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast will be rebuilt bigger and better than before.”
Elias, the 21-year-old photographer who snapped the famous Pass Christian photo, is now manager of photographic services and special projects at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula. He has never been able to erase memories of the morning he and reporter Ted O’Boyle surveyed the destruction of Camille’s 200-plus-mph winds and 24-foot tides.
“We set out from the old Herald office in Gulfport, and as we went further west, the destruction got worse, ” he recalled this month. “It looked like the Coast had been under siege and people were trying to pick through the rubble to find bits and pieces of their households, of their lives.
“When you’d been to the same places the day before and seen
houses and buildings and happy people, and now nothing — well, it was difficult to comprehend that in such a short time all that was erased. It had a very devastating effect on you.”
On the Pass Christian beach front, Elias and O’Boyle spied the now-famous flag defiantly flying in the wind. Nearby trees were snapped in half or uprooted; debris and pieces of houses lay everywhere. No one was around.
“I believe the flag was put up after the storm because it wasn’t tom to pieces,” Elias recalled. “But I was never able to find it or the location again.
“It was difficult to separate the scene, the feeling, from everything else I saw that morning.”
Flags were everywhere
Elias became the newspaper’s flag man. As he scouted the Coast for examples of destruction and rebuilding, he kept an eye out for waving flags. He found them in downtowns, neighborhoods and atop tents where families were living until houses could be rebuilt. He found them on stumps of businesses, alongside “Rebuilding Soon” signs. And he found them in the hands of hundreds when President Richard Nixon visited on Sept. 9 to survey the damage and console Camille victims.
The day after the Nixon visit, the Herald published an Elias photograph that showed a “Thanks for
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SUN HERALD FILE PHOTO
Flags were soon everywhere.
caring, Mr. President” sign.
It was tacked below an American flag.