One high rise where people laughed off Camille and were having a hurricane party was leveled, and I do mean leveled, as if by explosives and a bulldozer. Off course, 150 m.p.h. winds will do that...........
While the winds were terrible, what leveled Biloxi was the storm surge. The rising waters are like a raging river running through your living room and gets deeper by the minute. The hydraulic pressure is immense.
I remember the flooding Camille caused in Richmond, VA. Yes, Richmond. Camille came up through Tennesee into West Virginia/Virginia and dumped massive amounts of water. The normally placid James River crested the I-95 bridge which goes over it, and at quite an altitude at that. If anything is going to be called 'The Storm of the Century', Camille was it.