Howdy.
As most Americans know, today marks the 50th anniversary of the worst natural disaster to hit New Orleans and the United States. I am speaking, of course, of Hurricane Camille. Initially forming in the Caribbean Sea, it rapidly moved north-northwest towards the Louisiana coast (it was
initially
forecast to hit the Florida panhandle) and, on the evening of August 17, 1969, made landfall on the coast at Grand Isle, Louisiana, before moving north-northwest, causing the surge to flood New Orleans.
New Orleans was badly hit by the storm, with the Lower Ninth Ward hit by both the Category 5 winds and the storm surge, and many buildings were destroyed or badly damaged, not to mention the damage that occurred to when the city was flooded after many of the levees failed. Over 40,000 people died in New Orleans, and hundreds of thousands more were left homeless; the death toll would have been higher if many New Orleans residents hadn't remembered Hurricane Betsy's impact four years earlier and evacuated. Governor John J. McKeithen, to his credit, sent many vehicles to aid in the evacuation of New Orleans and Hale Boggs, the House Majority Whip, along with the senators for Louisiana, Allen J. Ellender and Russell Long, were major players in relief efforts after Camille. Still, though, it would take New Orleans years to recover from the devastation of Camille.
So, WI Hurricane Camille hadn't hit New Orleans?
For one thing, IMO, it butterflies away the creation of FEMA, IMO, since that agency was formed by Nixon to deal with Camille's aftermath. It probably also butterflies away the Levee Reform Act of 1971, which reformed the US Army Corps of Engineers after faults with the levees were found, as well as the levee system in New Orleans that exists today...