Book Thoughts: "Roar of the Heavens" by Stefan Bechtel

"Roar of the Heavens" is an account of Hurricane Camille, the second strongest hurricane to ever strike the United States. She hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast on August 17, 1969, making landfall as a Cat 5 hurricane, packing winds of 200 mph.

The book itself is divided into two parts. The first deals with Camille's strike on the Gulf Coast, the second deals with her run in with Nelson County, VA, a couple of days later where she dumped what may have been a world record amount of rain on a tiny rural area, exacting a toll about equal to her damage on the Gulf.

I've always been interested in hurricanes and tropical meteorology, so it was the the first part of the book that interested me the most and led me to order it. I wasn't disappointed either. Bechtel does a great job of telling the story of Camille's landfall on the gulf. It's very descriptive and very emotional, without being overly dramatic or cheesy, as some disaster stories are. Many accounts of Camille revolve around the supposed "hurricane party" that took place in the Richelieu apartments. and Bechtel does treat it, but he tells the story of the whole area through the perspective of several gulf coast residents, which just adds layers and depth.

The second part tells of Camille raining out over Nelson County, VA on August 19. I was a little skeptical at first because my main interest was in the Gulf Coast strike, but I was pleasantly surprised. This has been called a "once in a thousand years" event, where perhaps 31 inches of rain was dumped on a small area of rural VA in less than 8 hours, killing upwards of 150 people. This part of the story was equally as compelling, although he used so many different people's stories and recollections, it was a bit difficult to keep straight at times.

I rated this book as three stars and not four for three reasons. First, there some fairly noticeable editing issues, with misspellings and words left out, though it didn't detract horribly from the story. Second, Bechtel goes out of his way to put the storm in historical context with the late 1960s, and he goes a little too far. This results in several rather windy passages (pun intended) about Woodstock, which is alright, but I wasn't reading a book about Woodstock. One mention would have accomplished what he was going for. Finally, the writing itself started to struggle toward the end of the second part, with certain words starting to pop up over and over again in descriptions. I got tired of reading about things being "bucolic." There was even an exact quote used two different times, explaining the same situation, just a few pages apart, and that stuck out like a sore thumb.

The end result is a good read though, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys casual reading about hurricanes and accounts of natural disasters. Not a masterpiece but a satisfying and enjoyable read.