Rookie reporter was on duty at UPI; Hurricane Camille experience still vivid

Special Report

- Read more stories about Hurricane Camille

- Audio slideshow: Hear excerpts from Trooper Ed Tinsley's audio diary and see 1969 photos of the hurricane's aftermath

- Check out an interactive map of Camille's path and more

Peters reported that railroad tracks in Covington had been washed out and a few rail cars damaged. He was sure downstream areas would be affected, but he had no other details.

I took his call and filed the report on the UPI wires. I also was a college journalism student at the time, and the news story of the day, in Richmond, figured to be a rehash of the previous day’s Democratic primary runoff election for governor.

Then another stringer, from a Charlottesville radio station, called to report U.S. 29 was blocked by flood debris in southern Albemarle County.

Details of flooding filtered in throughout the morning, mostly from the Charlottesville area. It began to appear that Nelson County had been hit really hard, but we and other news media couldn’t contact anyone there. Phone lines were down.

Today, I have a hard time remembering who the candidates were in that primary election.

But I clearly recall the words of a state police dispatcher in Appomattox who said, around 1 p.m.:

“They pulled a body out of the James River in Scottsville, and another body floated by that they couldn’t reach.”

I handed my notes to Jeff Reynolds, a seasoned newsman who was at a teletype machine ready to send out UPI’s first full report about “remnants of Hurricane Camille.”

Reynolds took one look at my typed notes, tossed the story he had written, and rewrote it at the teletype keyboard. It took him all of three minutes.

Five minutes later, UPI’s regional bureau in Atlanta ordered Reynolds to go to Nelson County. The flood was a national story, and it demanded an on-the-scene reporter from UPI, which was then a worldwide wire service.

Through the next two days, UPI’s five-member Richmond staff reported rapidly rising, grim statistics from Tyro, Massies Mill and Davis Creek.

The third day, UPI sent me, a rookie, to Nelson County to relieve Reynolds. The story was winding down, from a national-news perspective.

Kimball Glass, a leader of Lynchburg rescue squads, drove me through the devastated territory.

Near Massies Mill, a church had been lifted off its foundation and moved, still nearly intact, about 100 feet.

Along creek banks, trees had been stacked like pulpwood by a force no human could match.

Near the confluence of the Rockfish and James rivers, a once-sturdy house had become a small pile of bricks. Its wooden framing had vanished.

Inexplicably, a child’s plastic toy peeked out of the mud nearby.

I filed a UPI story about rescue workers wearing Army gas masks going out to recover bodies.

Local residents were unhappy about a Washington Post report that described the homes their friends once lived in as “shacks.” How many of those reporters, the Nelson County folks wanted to know, actually owned the buildings they lived in, as the Nelson residents had?

Although I wasn’t the offending reporter, I’ve tried to avoid using the word “shacks” ever since.

And, by the way, Google confirms the primary election was won by William Battle, who beat Henry Howell to win the Democratic nomination for governor.

Battle then lost a historic November election to Republican Linwood Holton.

But every drive past Lovingston, on the stretch of U.S. 29 that served as a temporary airstrip during rescue operations, brings back other memories — vividly. Google can’t touch them.