For my final project, I decided to focus on a hurricane that affected my hometown like Katrina affected New Orleans. In 1969, Hurricane Camille stalled over the Blue Ridge Mountains and, meeting another storm, poured down rain into the valleys of Nelson County. I went down the path of an oral history, so I interviewed several family members who are old enough to remember Camille significantly.
For the creative aspect of the oral history, I decided to write a short story of three separated parts from the point of view of an unknown victim of the hurricane, and the sections are divided by quotes from those I interviewed. Each section relates in some way to the quote that comes before it.
Here’s the link to the short story: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15uaJHKg22s9cm84k2Fr6WgY5R9R-838fRbMOH7bUk2I/edit
HURRICANE CAMILLE’S JANE DOE
✽
The most vivid memory is waking up the morning of August not expecting anything but a normal morning. Then I remember looking out my front window toward the river. There was brown river water from the railroad tracks in front of my house to the Buckingham County river bank—at least 3 times the normal size of the river. Then we began to hear stories of houses and families washed out of Norwood down the river. That made me realize that while I slept these homes and the families were all destroyed. They were never found.
—Barbara Wood, age 78
✽
August 20th, 1969. Nelson County, Virginia deals with the aftermath of the havoc brought down into the valley by Hurricane Camille. 114 people were killed in the early morning hours from the torrential rains and resulting floods. The high school in Lovingston is turned into a makeshift morgue to hold the bodies of victims. Most are identified, but some are not.
That is where I lie, unidentified and alone.
I don’t remember my name. My skin is wrinkled and waterlogged. My hair, permanently drenched in the water of the James, hangs in tangled strands in my eyes. I have to push it away as I walk down the stark white hall, as I do every day.
My routine is one of repetition; I wake in the same place every morning—the place they put my body to rest—and stalk along the linoleum, looking for those who used to rest here with me. Patricia Bryant, the Rainses, and many of the Huffmans are the few I had recognized, but they’re no longer here. They were claimed by their families and brought home for a proper burial.
I’ve remained, unclaimed and unknown, and here I’ll stay.
✽
Many of my friends from school helped with locating survivors and bodies: Buzz Goad, Phil Payne, Johnny Profitt, and Robert Vest. Also, I remember the cleanup work and house building by the Mennonites from the Shenandoah Valley
—Jane Raup, age 68
✽
In the days following Camille, I would run through the halls, desperate, trying to get anyone to see me. I watched as those who had once sat beside me were taken away, their families claiming them, and I would be alone. The men who found me would bring more bodies in, refilling the spots my friends once occupied. After a while, I stopped recognizing those they brought in. It became a cycle; bodies were found, brought into the school’s basement, claimed by family, and taken out again. As time went on, I lost hope of being remembered.
Life has moved on in Nelson County. It’s been 50 years, give or take. The grandchildren of the survivors roam the halls of the high school now, and I drift among them. No one notices me—they never have. I move through the crowd, a silent observer. I try to listen to the conversations. I try, but I don’t understand them. There are too many voices echoing through the hall, and I don’t know what the different groups are talking about.
They don’t talk about the hurricane often. There have only been a few memorial services; the survivors talk about what they experienced and who they lost. I wait, each time, for someone to mention me. I wait for someone to give me my name back. If I had my name, I could remember who I was.
Every memorial ends with me, alone with no memories, returning to the basement.
I see them, sometimes, the ones I went to school with. Some work at the school now, right above my final resting place. I try to visit them. One girl—one woman I suppose—now works in the new library. I say new, but it’s not, really; it used to be the cafeteria where I’d eat lunch. Sometimes, a few of the students eat in there instead, and the sight sends waves of nostalgia washing over me.
Who am I?
✽
They landed small planes & helicopters on the new 4-lane highway in Lovingston.
— Ellen Quade, age 65
[My husband] Jimmy went several days to help search for missing and deceased people. He never told me how many bodies were found during that time. He did tell me that the most upsetting part of this work was finding bodies of children. At the time [our daughter] Mary K was 10 days from being one year old. I think in each body he saw Mary K. After a while he couldn’t go back
— Barbara Wood, age 78
✽
I remember the sound of planes and helicopters in those days after the hurricane when I’d first woken up outside my body. They were the search parties, men of the county who volunteered to search for potential survivors. I don’t know where the county got the aircraft from but without them, many of those up on the Blue Ridge Mountains wouldn’t have been found.
I watched them bring in those they found. Each time, the men looked more and more disheartened. I would wonder what it was like, to find them. Did these men see their loved ones in their pale faces? Were they relieved that their families were okay and then full of guilt for that relief?
What went through the mind of those who found me down by the river bank?
There is so much about my life and death I’m unsure of. I remember the loud rush of the flood waters. I remember that I lived in Davis Creek. I remember that I was young and in my second year of junior high. Other than that, it’s a blur. Any faces or names I might’ve known, including my own, have been scratched out of my memories, chiseled away until the etchings were gone.
As I sit, alone, in a forgotten burial ground, I can’t help but wonder: will I ever remember who I was? I hear the children, older now than I’ll ever have a chance to be, walk the halls above me, and break into a bittersweet smile.
They sound happy, like I was. I know that much. I know I was happy in my life, and after the disaster that took my life, I’m glad there’s happiness again.
✽
The community was the biggest part of the initial recovery effort. They came together in a memorial service at Nelson Co. High School around mid-September too.
— Jane Raup, age 68